---
title: Scratching and creaking at night usually come from mice, branches, w… — Sleepovers and spooky stories · tree and pragmatics
description: Scratching and creaking at night usually come from mice, branches, wind, cooling pipes or a house settling (its wood and walls shifting a tiny bit) as it cools; turning on a light and looking, or telling an adult, usually solves the mystery. Who acts: branches, walls, house. A sentence of the lesson
---

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# Sleepovers and spooky stories, sentence 7

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Scratching and creaking at night usually come from mice, branches, wind, cooling pipes or a house settling (its wood and walls shifting a tiny bit) as it cools; turning on a light and looking, or telling an adult, usually solves the mystery.

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**Who acts:** branches, walls, house · **What happens:** scratch, creak, come, settle, shift, cool · **To what, where:** wood, tiny bit, light, adult, mystery · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of the lesson «Sleepovers and spooky stories» of the myths 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 (branches, walls, house), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:myths:026-sleepovers-and-spooky-stories.lesson:7
# text = Scratching and creaking at night usually come from mice, branches, wind, cooling pipes or a house settling (its wood and walls shifting a tiny bit) as it cools; turning on a light and looking, or telling an adult, usually solves the mystery.
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = myths
# lesson = 026-sleepovers-and-spooky-stories.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): R5-strong ×1, R6-punct-agree ×1
1	Scratching	scratch	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	7	nsubj	_	_
2	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	3	cc	_	_
3	creaking	creak	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	1	conj	_	_
4	at	at	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	night	night	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	_
6	usually	usually	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
7	come	come	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	from	from	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	mice	mouse	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	obl	_	_
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
11	branches	branch	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	conj	_	Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=7:obl
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
13	wind	wind	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	appos	_	_
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
15	cooling	cooling	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	compound	_	_
16	pipes	pipe	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	conj	_	_
17	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
18	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	house	house	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	conj	_	_
20	settling	settle	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	11	acl	_	_
21	(	(	PUNCT	-LRB-	_	23	punct	_	_
22	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	23	nmod:poss	_	_
23	wood	wood	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obl	_	_
24	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	25	cc	_	_
25	walls	wall	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	23	conj	_	_
26	shifting	shift	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	25	acl	_	_
27	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	29	det	_	_
28	tiny	tiny	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	29	amod	_	_
29	bit	bit	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	26	obl:unmarked	_	_
30	)	)	PUNCT	-RRB-	_	26	punct	_	Agree=R6-punct-agree|Haiku=25:punct
31	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	33	mark	_	_
32	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	33	nsubj	_	_
33	cools	cool	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	20	advcl	_	_
34	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	35	punct	_	_
35	turning	turn	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	7	parataxis	_	_
36	on	on	ADP	IN	_	38	case	_	_
37	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	38	det	_	_
38	light	light	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	35	obl	_	_
39	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	40	cc	_	_
40	looking	look	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	35	conj	_	_
41	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	43	punct	_	_
42	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	43	cc	_	_
43	telling	tell	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	35	conj	_	_
44	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	45	det	_	_
45	adult	adult	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	43	obj	_	_
46	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	48	punct	_	_
47	usually	usually	ADV	RB	_	48	advmod	_	_
48	solves	solve	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	43	parataxis	_	_
49	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	50	det	_	_
50	mystery	mystery	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	48	obj	_	_
51	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- sa -->
- form: statement
- act: assert
- voice: narrator
- polarity: none
- teacher: kept the draft

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **scratch** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn scribble-25.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **creak** | gerund |  |  |  |  | night |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **come** | present |  |  |  |  |  | from mice and branches; usually *property* | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme from mouse=Initial\_Location |
| 4 | **settle** | gerund | branches *not said here* | house's wood and walls |  |  |  |  | vn correspond-36.1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 5 | **shift** | gerund | walls *not said here* | a tiny bit |  |  |  |  | vn caused\_calibratable\_cos-45.6.2-1 «NP V ADV-Middle»: agent=Patient |
| 6 | **cool** | present | house |  |  |  |  |  | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient |
| 7 | **turn** | gerund |  |  |  | a light |  |  | vn roll-51.3.1 «NP V PP.trajectory»: agent=Theme on light=Trajectory |
| 8 | **look** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Stimulus |
| 9 | **tell** *speech: assert* | gerund |  |  | a adult |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent adult=Recipient |
| 10 | **solve** | present |  | the mystery |  |  |  | usually *property* | vn discover-84 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent mystery=Topic |

<!-- .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:myths:026-sleepovers-and-spooky-stories.lesson:7`.

**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): R5-strong ×1, R6-punct-agree ×1. **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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