--- title: An African grey parrot named Alex, studied by Irene Pepperberg for 3… — How animals talk · tree and pragmatics description: An African grey parrot named Alex, studied by Irene Pepperberg for 30 years, could name dozens of objects, colours and shapes and count up to six, though most talking parrots just copy sounds. Who acts: African grey parrot, most talking parrots. A sentence of the lesson «How animals talk» of the bio --- [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/14/) [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/) / 14 # How animals talk, sentence 14 An African grey parrot named Alex, studied by Irene Pepperberg for 30 years, could name dozens of objects, colours and shapes and count up to six, though most talking parrots just copy sounds. **Who acts:** African grey parrot, most talking parrots · **What happens:** name, study, count up, talk, copy · **To what, where:** African grey parrot, dozens, sounds 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 (African grey parrot, most talking parrots), 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:14 # text = An African grey parrot named Alex, studied by Irene Pepperberg for 30 years, could name dozens of objects, colours and shapes and count up to six, though most talking parrots just copy sounds. # 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 ×3, R6-punct-agree ×1, R7-rel-agree ×2 1 An a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 4 det _ _ 2 African African ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 4 amod _ _ 3 grey grey ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 4 amod _ Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=4:compound|HaikuPos=NOUN:NN:Number=Sing 4 parrot parrot NOUN NN Number=Sing 17 nsubj _ Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=0:root 5 named name VERB VBN Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass 4 acl _ _ 6 Alex Alex PROPN NNP Number=Sing 5 xcomp _ _ 7 , , PUNCT , _ 8 punct _ _ 8 studied study VERB VBN Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass 4 acl _ Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=4:conj 9 by by ADP IN _ 11 case _ _ 10 Irene Irene PROPN NNP Number=Sing 11 compound _ _ 11 Pepperberg Pepperberg PROPN NNP Number=Sing 8 obl _ _ 12 for for ADP IN _ 14 case _ _ 13 30 30 NUM CD NumForm=Digit|NumType=Card 14 nummod _ _ 14 years year NOUN NNS Number=Plur 8 obl _ _ 15 , , PUNCT , _ 17 punct _ _ 16 could could AUX MD VerbForm=Fin 17 aux _ _ 17 name name VERB VB VerbForm=Inf 0 root _ Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=4:parataxis 18 dozens dozen NOUN NNS Number=Plur 17 obj _ _ 19 of of ADP IN _ 20 case _ _ 20 objects object NOUN NNS Number=Plur 18 nmod _ _ 21 , , PUNCT , _ 22 punct _ _ 22 colours colour NOUN NNS Number=Plur 20 conj _ Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=18:appos 23 and and CCONJ CC _ 24 cc _ _ 24 shapes shape NOUN NNS Number=Plur 22 conj _ _ 25 and and CCONJ CC _ 26 cc _ _ 26 count count VERB VB VerbForm=Inf 17 conj _ _ 27 up up ADP RP _ 26 compound:prt _ _ 28 to to ADP IN _ 29 case _ _ 29 six six NUM CD NumForm=Word|NumType=Card 26 obl _ _ 30 , , PUNCT , _ 36 punct _ _ 31 though though SCONJ IN _ 36 mark _ _ 32 most most ADJ JJS Degree=Sup 34 amod _ _ 33 talking talk VERB VBG VerbForm=Ger 34 amod _ _ 34 parrots parrot NOUN NNS Number=Plur 36 nsubj _ _ 35 just just ADV RB _ 36 advmod _ _ 36 copy copy VERB VB VerbForm=Inf 26 parataxis _ _ 37 sounds sound NOUN NNS Number=Plur 36 obj _ _ 38 . . PUNCT . _ 17 punct _ Agree=R6-punct-agree|Haiku=4:punct ``` ## Pragmatics {#pragmatics} No stored speech act for this sentence. | # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 1 | **name** | participle | | a African grey parrot *not said here* | | | | | vn appoint-29.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent | | 2 | **study** | participle | | a African grey parrot *not said here* | | | year | by Irene Pepperberg | vn learn-14-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent | | 3 | **name** | could | a African grey parrot | dozens of objects and colours and shapes | | | | | vn appoint-29.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent dozen=Theme | | 4 | **count up** | infinitive | a African grey parrot *not said here* | | | | | to six | vn matter-91 «NP V PP.experiencer»: agent=Stimulus to six=Experiencer | | 5 | **talk** | gerund | | | | | | | vn talk-37.5 «NP V»: agent=Agent | | 6 | **copy** | infinitive | most talking parrots | sounds | | | | | vn scribble-25.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent sound=Theme | 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: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): R5-strong ×3, R6-punct-agree ×1, R7-rel-agree ×2. **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, 13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/50-how-animals-talk/13/) - next →: [How animals talk, 15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/50-how-animals-talk/15/) - ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/50-how-animals-talk/)