--- title: Starlings copy other birds, phones, car alarms and even human words,… — City birds: sparrows, starlings, swifts, crows a… · tree and pragmatics description: Starlings copy other birds, phones, car alarms and even human words, and Mozart kept a pet starling that sang a tune from his piano music, a little changed. Who acts: Starlings, Mozart, pet starling, tune. A sentence of the lesson «City birds: sparrows, starlings, swifts, crows and peregrines on tal --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/369-city-birds-sparrows-starlings-swifts-crows-and-peregrines-on-tall-buildings/8/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/) / [City birds: sparrows, starlings, swift…](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/369-city-birds-sparrows-starlings-swifts-crows-and-peregrines-on-tall-buildings/) / 8 # City birds: sparrows, starlings, swifts, crows and peregrines on tall buildings, sentence 8 Starlings copy other birds, phones, car alarms and even human words, and Mozart kept a pet starling that sang a tune from his piano music, a little changed. **Who acts:** Starlings, Mozart, pet starling, tune · **What happens:** copy, keep, sing, change · **To what, where:** other birds, pet starling, tune, piano music, little 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 (Starlings, Mozart, pet starling, tune), 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:8 # text = Starlings copy other birds, phones, car alarms and even human words, and Mozart kept a pet starling that sang a tune from his piano music, a little changed. # 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 Starlings starling NOUN NNS Number=Plur 2 nsubj _ _ 2 copy copy VERB VBP Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 0 root _ _ 3 other other ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 4 amod _ _ 4 birds bird NOUN NNS Number=Plur 2 obj _ _ 5 , , PUNCT , _ 6 punct _ _ 6 phones phone NOUN NNS Number=Plur 4 conj _ _ 7 , , PUNCT , _ 9 punct _ _ 8 car car NOUN NN Number=Sing 9 compound _ _ 9 alarms alarm NOUN NNS Number=Plur 4 conj _ _ 10 and and CCONJ CC _ 13 cc _ _ 11 even even ADV RB _ 13 advmod _ _ 12 human human ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 13 amod _ _ 13 words word NOUN NNS Number=Plur 4 conj _ _ 14 , , PUNCT , _ 17 punct _ _ 15 and and CCONJ CC _ 17 cc _ _ 16 Mozart Mozart PROPN NNP Number=Sing 17 nsubj _ _ 17 kept keep VERB VBD Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 2 conj _ _ 18 a a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 20 det _ _ 19 pet pet NOUN NN Number=Sing 20 compound _ _ 20 starling starling NOUN NN Number=Sing 17 obj _ _ 21 that that PRON WDT PronType=Rel 22 nsubj _ _ 22 sang sing VERB VBD Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 20 acl:relcl _ _ 23 a a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 24 det _ _ 24 tune tune NOUN NN Number=Sing 22 obj _ _ 25 from from ADP IN _ 28 case _ _ 26 his his PRON PRP$ Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs 28 nmod:poss _ _ 27 piano piano NOUN NN Number=Sing 28 compound _ _ 28 music music NOUN NN Number=Sing 24 nmod _ Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=22:obl 29 , , PUNCT , _ 32 punct _ _ 30 a a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 31 det _ _ 31 little little ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 32 obl:unmarked _ _ 32 changed change VERB VBN Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part 24 acl _ _ 33 . . PUNCT . _ 2 punct _ _ ``` ## Pragmatics {#pragmatics} - form: statement - act: assert - voice: narrator - polarity: none - teacher: kept the draft | # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 1 | **copy** | present | Starlings | other birds and phones and car alarms and human words | | | | | vn scribble-25.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent bird=Theme | | 2 | **keep** | past | Mozart | a pet starling | | | | | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent starling=Theme | | 3 | **sing** *speech: express* | past | a pet starling | a tune | | Mozart's piano music | | | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location tune=Theme | | 4 | **change** | participle | a tune *not said here* | a little | | | | | vn dress-41.1.1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent | 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. **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:8`. **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/). - ← previous: [City birds: sparrows, starlings, swift…, 7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/369-city-birds-sparrows-starlings-swifts-crows-and-peregrines-on-tall-buildings/7/) - next →: [City birds: sparrows, starlings, swift…, 9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/369-city-birds-sparrows-starlings-swifts-crows-and-peregrines-on-tall-buildings/9/) - ↑ 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/)