---
title: Most birds have a poor sense of smell and will not abandon a chick b… — Myths and cartoons put right: Tom and Jerry, ele… · tree and pragmatics
description: Most birds have a poor sense of smell and will not abandon a chick because a person touched it; a fledgling (a young bird just learning to fly) on the ground usually has its parents nearby and is best left alone. Who acts: Most birds, person, young bird, fledgling. A sentence of the lesson «Myths an
---

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# Myths and cartoons put right: Tom and Jerry, elephants and mice, ostriches and more, sentence 14

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Most birds have a poor sense of smell and will not abandon a chick because a person touched it; a fledgling (a young bird just learning to fly) on the ground usually has its parents nearby and is best left alone.

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**Who acts:** Most birds, person, young bird, fledgling · **What happens:** have, not abandon, touch, learn, fly, leave · **To what, where:** poor sense, chick, parents, ground, smell

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This is a sentence of the lesson «Myths and cartoons put right: Tom and Jerry, elephants and mice, ostriches and more» of the biology 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 (Most birds, person, young bird, fledgling), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:biology:191-myths-and-cartoons-put-right.lesson:14
# text = Most birds have a poor sense of smell and will not abandon a chick because a person touched it; a fledgling (a young bird just learning to fly) on the ground usually has its parents nearby and is best left alone.
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = biology
# lesson = 191-myths-and-cartoons-put-right.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): R1-cc-next ×2, R5-strong ×1, R7-rel-agree ×1
1	Most	most	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	2	amod	_	_
2	birds	bird	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	nsubj	_	_
3	have	have	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	poor	poor	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	sense	sense	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
7	of	of	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	smell	smell	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nmod	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	Agree=R1-cc-next|Haiku=3:cc
10	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
11	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	12	advmod	_	_
12	abandon	abandon	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	conj	_	_
13	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	chick	chick	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	_
15	because	because	SCONJ	IN	_	18	mark	_	_
16	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	person	person	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nsubj	_	_
18	touched	touch	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	advcl	_	_
19	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	obj	_	_
20	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
21	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	fledgling	fledgling	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	36	nsubj	_	_
23	(	(	PUNCT	-LRB-	_	26	punct	_	_
24	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	26	det	_	_
25	young	young	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	26	amod	_	_
26	bird	bird	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	appos	_	_
27	just	just	ADV	RB	_	28	advmod	_	_
28	learning	learn	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	26	acl	_	_
29	to	to	PART	TO	_	30	mark	_	_
30	fly	fly	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	28	xcomp	_	_
31	)	)	PUNCT	-RRB-	_	30	punct	_	_
32	on	on	ADP	IN	_	34	case	_	_
33	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	34	det	_	_
34	ground	ground	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	36	obl	_	_
35	usually	usually	ADV	RB	_	36	advmod	_	_
36	has	have	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	parataxis	_	_
37	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	38	nmod:poss	_	_
38	parents	parent	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	36	obj	_	_
39	nearby	nearby	ADV	RB	_	36	advmod	_	Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=38:advmod
40	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	43	cc	_	Agree=R1-cc-next|Haiku=36:cc
41	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	43	aux:pass	_	_
42	best	well	ADV	RBS	Degree=Sup	43	advmod	_	_
43	left	leave	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	36	conj	_	_
44	alone	alone	ADV	RB	_	43	xcomp	_	Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=43:advmod
45	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** | present | Most birds | a poor sense of smell |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent sense=Patient |
| 2 | **not** **abandon** | future | Most birds *not said here* | a chick |  |  |  |  | vn leave-51.2 «NP V NP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme chick=Source |
| 3 | **touch** | past | a person | chick |  |  |  |  | vn contiguous\_location-47.8-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme it=Co-Theme |
| 4 | **learn** | gerund | a young bird *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn learn-14-2-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 5 | **fly** | to-infinitive | a young bird *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 6 | **have** | present | a fledgling | fledgling's parents |  | the ground |  | nearby, usually *property* | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent parent=Patient |
| 7 | **leave** | present · passive | a fledgling *not said here* |  |  |  |  | well *property* | vn escape-51.1-1-1 «NP V» |
| 8 | **sense** |  |  | smell |  |  |  |  | nom sense «cognition transitive»: of=patient |

<!-- .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:biology:191-myths-and-cartoons-put-right.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): R1-cc-next ×2, R5-strong ×1, R7-rel-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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