---
title: In London sparrow numbers fell by about two-thirds in a few decades,… — City birds: sparrows, starlings, swifts, crows a… · tree and pragmatics
description: In London sparrow numbers fell by about two-thirds in a few decades, and scientists still argue why. Who acts: London sparrow numbers, scientists. A sentence of the lesson «City birds: sparrows, starlings, swifts, crows and peregrines on tall buildings» of the biology course of Mova's primary school
---

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# City birds: sparrows, starlings, swifts, crows and peregrines on tall buildings, sentence 5

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
In London sparrow numbers fell by about two-thirds in a few decades, and scientists still argue why.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** London sparrow numbers, scientists · **What happens:** fall, argue

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This is a sentence of the lesson «City birds: sparrows, starlings, swifts, crows and peregrines on tall buildings» 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 (London sparrow numbers, scientists), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:biology:369-city-birds-sparrows-starlings-swifts-crows-and-peregrines-on-tall-buildings.lesson:5
# text = In London sparrow numbers fell by about two-thirds in a few decades, and scientists still argue why.
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = biology
# lesson = 369-city-birds-sparrows-starlings-swifts-crows-and-peregrines-on-tall-buildings.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): R5-strong ×1
1	In	in	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
2	London	London	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	4	compound	_	_
3	sparrow	sparrow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	compound	_	_
4	numbers	number	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	nsubj	_	_
5	fell	fall	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	by	by	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
7	about	about	ADV	RB	_	8	advmod	_	Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=10:advmod
8	two	two	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	10	nummod	_	_
9	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	8	punct	_	_
10	thirds	third	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	obl	_	_
11	in	in	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
12	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
13	few	few	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
14	decades	decade	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	obl	_	_
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
17	scientists	scientist	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	19	nsubj	_	_
18	still	still	ADV	RB	_	19	advmod	_	_
19	argue	argue	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
20	why	why	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	19	advmod	_	_
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- sa -->
- form: statement
- act: narrate
- voice: narrator
- polarity: none
- teacher: kept the draft

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **fall** | past | London sparrow numbers |  |  |  | decade | by two thirds | vn occur-48.3 «NP V PP»: agent=Theme by third=Location |
| 2 | **argue** *speech: disagree* | present | scientists |  |  |  | still |  | vn correspond-36.1-1 «NP V»: 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:biology:369-city-birds-sparrows-starlings-swifts-crows-and-peregrines-on-tall-buildings.lesson:5`.

**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): R5-strong ×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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- ← previous: [City birds: sparrows, starlings, swift…, 4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/369-city-birds-sparrows-starlings-swifts-crows-and-peregrines-on-tall-buildings/4/)
- next →: [City birds: sparrows, starlings, swift…, 6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/369-city-birds-sparrows-starlings-swifts-crows-and-peregrines-on-tall-buildings/6/)
- ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/369-city-birds-sparrows-starlings-swifts-crows-and-peregrines-on-tall-buildings/)