---
title: Some fossils are used to date rocks, because the species lived only… — Fossils · tree and pragmatics
description: Some fossils are used to date rocks, because the species lived only for a short time but spread widely. Who acts: species. A sentence of the lesson «Fossils» of the geography course of Mova's primary school with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fossils, sentence 14

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Some fossils are used to date rocks, because the species lived only for a short time but spread widely.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** species · **What happens:** use, date, live, spread · **To what, where:** fossils, rocks

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This is a sentence of the lesson «Fossils» of the geography course of Mova's primary school. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (species), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:geography:057-fossils.lesson:14
# text = Some fossils are used to date rocks, because the species lived only for a short time but spread widely.
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = geography
# lesson = 057-fossils.lesson
# annotation = Mova annot: Rust (en) → Haiku 5.5 (medium, Batches API) patches; gates UD 2.18; agreed by treeagree rules (Stanza, Trankit, spaCy trf): no change
1	Some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	2	det	_	_
2	fossils	fossil	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nsubj:pass	_	_
3	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux:pass	_	_
4	used	use	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
6	date	date	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	xcomp	_	_
7	rocks	rock	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	obj	_	_
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
9	because	because	SCONJ	IN	_	12	mark	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	species	species	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	nsubj	_	_
12	lived	live	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	advcl	_	_
13	only	only	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	_
14	for	for	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
15	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
16	short	short	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	amod	_	_
17	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	_
18	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
19	spread	spread	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	conj	_	_
20	widely	widely	ADV	RB	_	19	advmod	_	_
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .note -->
No stored speech act for this sentence.

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **use** | present · passive |  | some fossils |  |  |  |  | vn use-105.1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: subject=Theme clause=Eventuality |
| 2 | **date** | to-infinitive |  | rocks |  |  |  |  | vn marry-36.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent rock=Co-Agent |
| 3 | **live** | past | the species |  |  |  | time |  | vn exist-47.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **spread** | past | the species *not said here* |  |  |  |  | widely *property* | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

<!-- .note -->
One row per clause the reader finds. «not said here»: a role filled from the clause above. «roles by»: a VerbNet class and frame when one fits the verb, else the reader's rules on the tree.

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**Licence: [CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/)**, as the whole of Mova corpus 0.4, of which this treebank (the agreed school, `mova-school-agreed-en.conllu`) is part. The lessons were written for Mova's primary school. Sentence `school:geography:057-fossils.lesson:14`.

**The tree:** Mova annot: Rust (en) → Haiku 5.5 (medium, Batches API) patches; gates UD 2.18; agreed by treeagree rules (Stanza, Trankit, spaCy trf): no change. **The frames** are read from the tree by Mova's frames reader (`prag`) when this page is built, the lesson read in order, so a pronoun may be resolved from an earlier sentence.

See the [release 0.4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/releases/0.4/).

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