---
title: A tornado is much smaller but can be even fiercer: a narrow spinning… — Storms: thunder, lightning, hurricanes and torna… · tree and pragmatics
description: A tornado is much smaller but can be even fiercer: a narrow spinning column of air that reaches down from a thunderstorm cloud to the ground and may destroy one street while leaving the next one untouched. Who acts: tornado, narrow spinning column. A sentence of the lesson «Storms: thunder, lightnin
---

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# Storms: thunder, lightning, hurricanes and tornadoes, sentence 4

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
A tornado is much smaller but can be even fiercer: a narrow spinning column of air that reaches down from a thunderstorm cloud to the ground and may destroy one street while leaving the next one untouched.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** tornado, narrow spinning column · **What happens:** be, spin, reach down, destroy, leave · **To what, where:** thunderstorm cloud, one street, next one

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of the lesson «Storms: thunder, lightning, hurricanes and tornadoes» of the world 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 (tornado, narrow spinning column), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:world:068-storms-and-wild-winds.lesson:4
# text = A tornado is much smaller but can be even fiercer: a narrow spinning column of air that reaches down from a thunderstorm cloud to the ground and may destroy one street while leaving the next one untouched.
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = world
# lesson = 068-storms-and-wild-winds.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): R8-pos-agree ×1
1	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	tornado	tornado	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
3	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
4	much	much	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	smaller	small	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	0	root	_	_
6	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
7	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	10	aux	_	_
8	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	cop	_	_
9	even	even	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	_
10	fiercer	fierce	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	5	conj	_	_
11	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	15	punct	_	_
12	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
13	narrow	narrow	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
14	spinning	spin	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	15	amod	_	_
15	column	column	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obl	_	_
16	of	of	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	air	air	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nmod	_	_
18	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	19	nsubj	_	_
19	reaches	reach	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	15	acl:relcl	_	_
20	down	down	ADP	RP	_	19	compound:prt	_	_
21	from	from	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
22	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
23	thunderstorm	thunderstorm	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	compound	_	_
24	cloud	cloud	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obl	_	_
25	to	to	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
26	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	27	det	_	_
27	ground	ground	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obl	_	_
28	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	30	cc	_	_
29	may	may	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	30	aux	_	_
30	destroy	destroy	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	19	conj	_	_
31	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	32	nummod	_	_
32	street	street	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	30	obj	_	_
33	while	while	SCONJ	IN	_	34	mark	_	_
34	leaving	leave	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	30	advcl	_	_
35	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	37	det	_	_
36	next	next	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	37	amod	_	_
37	one	one	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	34	obj	_	Agree=R8-pos-agree|Haiku=34:obj|HaikuPos=NUM:CD:NumForm=Word|NumType=Card
38	untouched	untouched	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	34	xcomp	_	_
39	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	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 | **is** | present | a tornado |  |  |  |  | small *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **is** | can | a tornado *not said here* |  |  |  |  | a narrow spinning column of air *obl*; fierce *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **spin** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn roll-51.3.1 «NP.theme V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **reach down** | present | a narrow spinning column of air |  |  | a thunderstorm cloud |  | to the ground | vn body\_motion-49.2-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 5 | **destroy** | may | a narrow spinning column of air *not said here* | one street |  |  |  |  | vn destroy-44 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent street=Patient |
| 6 | **leave** | gerund | a narrow spinning column of air *not said here* | the next one |  |  |  | untouched *property* | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent one=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:world:068-storms-and-wild-winds.lesson:4`.

**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): 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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