--- title: A cat's eyes shine in headlights because a mirror-like layer at the… — Light and shadows · tree and pragmatics description: A cat's eyes shine in headlights because a mirror-like layer at the back of the eye bounces light back out, helping the cat see in dim light. Who acts: eyes, mirror like layer, cat. A sentence of the lesson «Light and shadows» of the physics course of Mova's primary school with its dependency tree a --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/20-light-and-shadows/13/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Physics](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/) / [Light and shadows](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/20-light-and-shadows/) / 13 # Light and shadows, sentence 13 A cat's eyes shine in headlights because a mirror-like layer at the back of the eye bounces light back out, helping the cat see in dim light. **Who acts:** eyes, mirror like layer, cat · **What happens:** shine, bounce, help, see · **To what, where:** headlights, light, cat, dim light This is a sentence of the lesson «Light and shadows» of the physics 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 (eyes, mirror like layer, cat), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree. ## The tree {#tree} ```conllu # sent_id = school:physics:020-light-and-shadows.lesson:13 # text = A cat's eyes shine in headlights because a mirror-like layer at the back of the eye bounces light back out, helping the cat see in dim light. # source = school lesson (ours) # course = physics # lesson = 020-light-and-shadows.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): R6-punct-agree ×1 1 A a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 2 det _ _ 2 cat cat NOUN NN Number=Sing 4 nmod:poss _ _ 3 's 's PART POS _ 2 case _ _ 4 eyes eye NOUN NNS Number=Plur 5 nsubj _ _ 5 shine shine VERB VBP Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 0 root _ _ 6 in in ADP IN _ 7 case _ _ 7 headlights headlight NOUN NNS Number=Plur 5 obl _ _ 8 because because SCONJ IN _ 20 mark _ _ 9 a a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 13 det _ _ 10 mirror mirror NOUN NN Number=Sing 13 compound _ _ 11 - - PUNCT HYPH _ 10 punct _ _ 12 like like ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 13 amod _ _ 13 layer layer NOUN NN Number=Sing 20 nsubj _ _ 14 at at ADP IN _ 16 case _ _ 15 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 16 det _ _ 16 back back NOUN NN Number=Sing 13 nmod _ _ 17 of of ADP IN _ 19 case _ _ 18 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 19 det _ _ 19 eye eye NOUN NN Number=Sing 16 nmod _ _ 20 bounces bounce VERB VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 5 advcl _ _ 21 light light NOUN NN Number=Sing 20 obj _ _ 22 back back ADV RB _ 23 advmod _ _ 23 out out ADV RB _ 20 advmod _ _ 24 , , PUNCT , _ 25 punct _ _ 25 helping help VERB VBG Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part 20 advcl _ _ 26 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 27 det _ _ 27 cat cat NOUN NN Number=Sing 25 obj _ _ 28 see see VERB VB VerbForm=Inf 25 xcomp _ _ 29 in in ADP IN _ 31 case _ _ 30 dim dim ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 31 amod _ _ 31 light light NOUN NN Number=Sing 28 obl _ _ 32 . . PUNCT . _ 5 punct _ Agree=R6-punct-agree|Haiku=21:punct ``` ## Pragmatics {#pragmatics} No stored speech act for this sentence. | # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 1 | **shine** | present | a cat's eyes | | | headlights | | | vn light\_emission-43.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in headlight=Location | | 2 | **bounce** | present | a mirror like layer at the back of the eye | light | | | | out *property* | vn run-51.3.2-2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent light=Agent | | 3 | **help** | gerund | a mirror like layer at the back of the eye *not said here* | the cat | | | | | vn help-72.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent cat=Beneficiary clause=Theme | | 4 | **see** | infinitive | the cat *not said here* | | | dim light | | | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer | 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. **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:physics:020-light-and-shadows.lesson:13`. **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): 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/). - ← previous: [Light and shadows, 12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/20-light-and-shadows/12/) - next →: [Light and shadows, 14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/20-light-and-shadows/14/) - ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/20-light-and-shadows/)