---
title: In a nuclear power station, uranium atoms split and give off heat, w… — Power stations and the grid · tree and pragmatics
description: In a nuclear power station, uranium atoms split and give off heat, which makes steam to spin turbines; a small pellet of uranium fuel holds about as much energy as a tonne of coal, and the sites are guarded and tightly controlled. Who acts: uranium atoms, heat, steam, small pellet. A sentence of the
---

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# Power stations and the grid, sentence 10

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
In a nuclear power station, uranium atoms split and give off heat, which makes steam to spin turbines; a small pellet of uranium fuel holds about as much energy as a tonne of coal, and the sites are guarded and tightly controlled.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** uranium atoms, heat, steam, small pellet · **What happens:** split, give off, make, spin, hold, guard · **To what, where:** nuclear power station, heat, steam, turbines, much energy, sites

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of the lesson «Power stations and the grid» of the technology 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 (uranium atoms, heat, steam, small pellet), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:technology:032-power-stations-and-the-grid.lesson:10
# text = In a nuclear power station, uranium atoms split and give off heat, which makes steam to spin turbines; a small pellet of uranium fuel holds about as much energy as a tonne of coal, and the sites are guarded and tightly controlled.
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = technology
# lesson = 032-power-stations-and-the-grid.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): R7-rel-agree ×2, R8-pos-agree ×1
1	In	in	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
2	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
3	nuclear	nuclear	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
4	power	power	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	compound	_	_
5	station	station	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	_
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
7	uranium	uranium	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	compound	_	_
8	atoms	atom	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	nsubj	_	_
9	split	split	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
11	give	give	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	9	conj	_	Agree=R8-pos-agree|Haiku=9:conj|HaikuPos=VERB:VB:VerbForm=Inf
12	off	off	ADP	RP	_	11	compound:prt	_	_
13	heat	heat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	_
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
15	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	16	nsubj	_	_
16	makes	make	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	13	acl:relcl	_	_
17	steam	steam	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obj	_	_
18	to	to	PART	TO	_	19	mark	_	_
19	spin	spin	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	16	xcomp	_	_
20	turbines	turbine	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	19	obj	_	_
21	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	24	punct	_	_
22	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
23	small	small	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	24	amod	_	_
24	pellet	pellet	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	28	nsubj	_	Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=28:conj
25	of	of	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=27:mark|HaikuPos=SCONJ:IN:_
26	uranium	uranium	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	27	compound	_	_
27	fuel	fuel	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	nmod	_	_
28	holds	hold	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	9	conj	_	_
29	about	about	ADV	RB	_	31	advmod	_	_
30	as	as	ADV	RB	_	31	advmod	_	_
31	much	much	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	32	amod	_	_
32	energy	energy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	28	obj	_	_
33	as	as	ADP	IN	_	35	case	_	_
34	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	35	det	_	_
35	tonne	tonne	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	28	obl	_	_
36	of	of	ADP	IN	_	37	case	_	_
37	coal	coal	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	35	nmod	_	_
38	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	43	punct	_	_
39	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	43	cc	_	_
40	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	41	det	_	_
41	sites	site	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	43	nsubj:pass	_	_
42	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	43	aux:pass	_	_
43	guarded	guard	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	9	parataxis	_	_
44	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	46	cc	_	_
45	tightly	tightly	ADV	RB	_	46	advmod	_	_
46	controlled	control	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	43	conj	_	_
47	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	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 | **split** | present | uranium atoms |  |  | a nuclear power station |  |  | vn break-45.1 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient |
| 2 | **give off** | present | uranium atoms *not said here* | heat |  |  |  |  | vn substance\_emission-43.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Source heat=Theme |
| 3 | **make** | present | heat | steam |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **spin** | to-infinitive | steam *not said here* | turbines |  |  |  |  | vn roll-51.3.1 «NP V NP.theme»: agent=Agent turbine=Theme |
| 5 | **hold** | present | a small pellet of uranium fuel | much energy |  |  |  | as a tonne of coal | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent energy=Theme |
| 6 | **guard** | present · passive |  | the sites |  |  |  |  | vn defend-72.3 «NP V NP»: subject=Beneficiary |
| 7 | **control** | participle |  |  |  |  |  | tightly *property* | vn enforce-63 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .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:technology:032-power-stations-and-the-grid.lesson:10`.

**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): R7-rel-agree ×2, R8-pos-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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