---
title: Most birds have a weak sense of smell and will not abandon a chick b… — Defences: tricks and myths: playing dead, droppi… · tree and pragmatics
description: Most birds have a weak sense of smell and will not abandon a chick because a person touched it; the real danger is moving the chick away from where its parents feed it, and a fluffy bird hopping on the ground is often a fledgling whose parents are near. Who acts: Most birds, person, real danger, par
---

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# Defences: tricks and myths: playing dead, dropping tails, ink, and do ostriches bury their heads?, sentence 15

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Most birds have a weak sense of smell and will not abandon a chick because a person touched it; the real danger is moving the chick away from where its parents feed it, and a fluffy bird hopping on the ground is often a fledgling whose parents are near.

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**Who acts:** Most birds, person, real danger, parents, fluffy bird · **What happens:** have, not abandon, touch, move, feed, hop · **To what, where:** weak sense, chick, bird, ground, fledgling, smell

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This is a sentence of the lesson «Defences: tricks and myths: playing dead, dropping tails, ink, and do ostriches bury their heads?» 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, real danger, parents), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:biology:249-defences-tricks-and-myths-playing-dead-dropping-tails-ink-and-ostriches.lesson:15
# text = Most birds have a weak sense of smell and will not abandon a chick because a person touched it; the real danger is moving the chick away from where its parents feed it, and a fluffy bird hopping on the ground is often a fledgling whose parents are near.
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = biology
# lesson = 249-defences-tricks-and-myths-playing-dead-dropping-tails-ink-and-ostriches.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): no change
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	weak	weak	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	_	_
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	:	_	25	punct	_	_
21	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
22	real	real	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	23	amod	_	_
23	danger	danger	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	nsubj	_	_
24	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	25	aux	_	_
25	moving	move	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	3	parataxis	_	_
26	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	27	det	_	_
27	chick	chick	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	obj	_	_
28	away	away	ADV	RB	_	25	advmod	_	_
29	from	from	ADP	IN	_	30	case	_	_
30	where	where	ADV	WRB	PronType=Rel	28	obl	_	_
31	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	32	nmod:poss	_	_
32	parents	parent	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	33	nsubj	_	_
33	feed	feed	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	30	advcl:relcl	_	_
34	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	33	obj	_	_
35	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	47	punct	_	_
36	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	47	cc	_	_
37	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	39	det	_	_
38	fluffy	fluffy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	39	amod	_	_
39	bird	bird	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	47	nsubj	_	_
40	hopping	hop	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	39	acl	_	_
41	on	on	ADP	IN	_	43	case	_	_
42	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	43	det	_	_
43	ground	ground	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	40	obl	_	_
44	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	47	cop	_	_
45	often	often	ADV	RB	_	47	advmod	_	_
46	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	47	det	_	_
47	fledgling	fledgling	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	conj	_	_
48	whose	whose	PRON	WP$	Poss=Yes|PronType=Rel	49	nmod:poss	_	_
49	parents	parent	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	51	nsubj	_	_
50	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	51	cop	_	_
51	near	near	ADV	RB	_	47	acl:relcl	_	_
52	.	.	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 weak 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 | bird |  |  |  |  | vn contiguous\_location-47.8-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme it=Co-Theme |
| 4 | **move** | present · progressive | the real danger | the chick |  |  |  | away *property* | vn roll-51.3.1 «NP V ADJ.result»: agent=Theme chick=Result |
| 5 | **feed** | present | bird's parents | bird |  |  |  |  | vn feeding-39.7 «NP V NP PP.recipient»: agent=Agent it=Theme |
| 6 | **hop** | gerund | a fluffy bird *not said here* |  |  | the ground |  |  | vn run-51.3.2-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme on ground=Trajectory |
| 7 | **is a** | present | a fluffy bird | a fledgling |  |  |  | often *property* | tree rules |
| 8 | **is** | present | parents |  |  |  |  | near *property* | tree rules |
| 9 | **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:249-defences-tricks-and-myths-playing-dead-dropping-tails-ink-and-ostriches.lesson:15`.

**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): no change. **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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