--- title: In spring male songbirds such as blackbirds sing at dawn to claim te… — How animals talk · tree and pragmatics description: In spring male songbirds such as blackbirds sing at dawn to claim territory and be noticed, and young birds learn their songs by listening and practising, much like a baby learning to talk. Who acts: spring male songbirds, young birds, baby, birds. A sentence of the lesson «How animals talk» of the --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/50-how-animals-talk/11/) [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/) / [How animals talk](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/50-how-animals-talk/) / 11 # How animals talk, sentence 11 In spring male songbirds such as blackbirds sing at dawn to claim territory and be noticed, and young birds learn their songs by listening and practising, much like a baby learning to talk. **Who acts:** spring male songbirds, young birds, baby, birds · **What happens:** sing, claim, notice, learn, listen, practise · **To what, where:** territory, songs This is a sentence of the lesson «How animals talk» 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 (spring male songbirds, young birds, baby, birds), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree. ## The tree {#tree} ```conllu # sent_id = school:biology:050-how-animals-talk.lesson:11 # text = In spring male songbirds such as blackbirds sing at dawn to claim territory and be noticed, and young birds learn their songs by listening and practising, much like a baby learning to talk. # source = school lesson (ours) # course = biology # lesson = 050-how-animals-talk.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 ×2, R6-punct-agree ×1, R7-rel-agree ×1 1 In in ADP IN _ 4 case _ _ 2 spring spring NOUN NN Number=Sing 4 compound _ _ 3 male male ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 4 amod _ _ 4 songbirds songbird NOUN NNS Number=Plur 8 nsubj _ Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=0:root 5 such such ADJ JJ Degree=Pos|ExtPos=ADP 7 case _ _ 6 as as ADP IN _ 5 fixed _ _ 7 blackbirds blackbird NOUN NNS Number=Plur 4 nmod _ _ 8 sing sing VERB VBP Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 0 root _ Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=7:acl:relcl 9 at at ADP IN _ 10 case _ _ 10 dawn dawn NOUN NN Number=Sing 8 obl _ _ 11 to to PART TO _ 12 mark _ _ 12 claim claim VERB VB VerbForm=Inf 8 advcl _ _ 13 territory territory NOUN NN Number=Sing 12 obj _ _ 14 and and CCONJ CC _ 16 cc _ _ 15 be be AUX VB VerbForm=Inf 16 aux:pass _ _ 16 noticed notice VERB VBN Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass 12 conj _ _ 17 , , PUNCT , _ 21 punct _ _ 18 and and CCONJ CC _ 21 cc _ _ 19 young young ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 20 amod _ _ 20 birds bird NOUN NNS Number=Plur 21 nsubj _ _ 21 learn learn VERB VBP Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 8 conj _ _ 22 their their PRON PRP$ Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs 23 nmod:poss _ _ 23 songs song NOUN NNS Number=Plur 21 obj _ _ 24 by by SCONJ IN _ 25 mark _ Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=25:case|HaikuPos=ADP:IN:_ 25 listening listen VERB VBG Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part 21 advcl _ _ 26 and and CCONJ CC _ 27 cc _ _ 27 practising practise VERB VBG Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part 25 conj _ _ 28 , , PUNCT , _ 32 punct _ _ 29 much much ADV RB _ 32 advmod _ _ 30 like like ADP IN _ 32 case _ _ 31 a a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 32 det _ _ 32 baby baby NOUN NN Number=Sing 25 obl _ _ 33 learning learn VERB VBG VerbForm=Ger 32 acl _ _ 34 to to PART TO _ 35 mark _ _ 35 talk talk VERB VB VerbForm=Inf 33 xcomp _ _ 36 . . PUNCT . _ 8 punct _ Agree=R6-punct-agree|Haiku=4: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 | **sing** *speech: express* | present | spring male songbirds such blackbirds | | | | dawn | | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP V»: agent=Theme | | 2 | **claim** *speech: other* | to-infinitive | spring male songbirds such blackbirds *not said here* | territory | | | | | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent territory=Topic | | 3 | **notice** | infinitive · passive | spring male songbirds such blackbirds *not said here* | | | | | | vn see-30.1-1 «NP V S\_ING» | | 4 | **learn** | present | young birds | birds's songs | | | | | vn learn-14-2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent song=Topic | | 5 | **listen** | gerund | young birds *not said here* | | | | | like a baby | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent | | 6 | **practise** | gerund | young birds *not said here* | | | | | | tree rules | | 7 | **learn** | gerund | a baby *not said here* | | | | | | vn learn-14-2-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic | | 8 | **talk** | to-infinitive | a baby *not said here* | | | | | | vn talk-37.5 «NP V»: agent=Agent | | 9 | **sing** | | birds *= bird* | | | | | | nom song «communication intransitive»: poss=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:050-how-animals-talk.lesson:11`. **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 ×2, R6-punct-agree ×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/). - ← previous: [How animals talk, 10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/50-how-animals-talk/10/) - next →: [How animals talk, 12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/50-how-animals-talk/12/) - ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/50-how-animals-talk/)