---
title: Each bottlenose dolphin has its own signature whistle, a bit like a… — How animals talk · tree and pragmatics
description: Each bottlenose dolphin has its own signature whistle, a bit like a name, which others can copy to call it, and dolphins seem to remember old companions' whistles for 20 years or more. Who acts: bottlenose dolphin, others, dolphins, dolphin. A sentence of the lesson «How animals talk» of the biology
---

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# How animals talk, sentence 15

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Each bottlenose dolphin has its own signature whistle, a bit like a name, which others can copy to call it, and dolphins seem to remember old companions' whistles for 20 years or more.

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**Who acts:** bottlenose dolphin, others, dolphins, dolphin, old companions · **What happens:** have, copy, call, seem, remember, whistle · **To what, where:** own signature whistle, whistle, whistles · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (bottlenose dolphin, others, dolphins, dolphin), 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:15
# text = Each bottlenose dolphin has its own signature whistle, a bit like a name, which others can copy to call it, and dolphins seem to remember old companions' whistles for 20 years or more.
# 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): no change
1	Each	each	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	3	det	_	_
2	bottlenose	bottlenose	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	compound	_	_
3	dolphin	dolphin	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	has	have	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
6	own	own	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
7	signature	signature	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	compound	_	_
8	whistle	whistle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	_
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
10	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	bit	bit	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	appos	_	_
12	like	like	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	name	name	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nmod	_	_
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
16	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	19	obj	_	_
17	others	other	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	19	nsubj	_	_
18	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	19	aux	_	_
19	copy	copy	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	parataxis	_	_
20	to	to	PART	TO	_	21	mark	_	_
21	call	call	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	19	xcomp	_	_
22	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	obj	_	_
23	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	26	punct	_	_
24	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	26	cc	_	_
25	dolphins	dolphin	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	26	nsubj	_	_
26	seem	seem	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
27	to	to	PART	TO	_	28	mark	_	_
28	remember	remember	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	26	xcomp	_	_
29	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	30	amod	_	_
30	companions	companion	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	32	nmod:poss	_	_
31	'	's	PART	POS	_	30	case	_	_
32	whistles	whistle	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	28	obj	_	_
33	for	for	ADP	IN	_	35	case	_	_
34	20	20	NUM	CD	NumForm=Digit|NumType=Card	35	nummod	_	_
35	years	year	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	28	obl	_	_
36	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	37	cc	_	_
37	more	more	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	35	conj	_	_
38	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- sa -->
- form: statement
- act: assert
- voice: narrator
- polarity: none
- teacher: changed polarity=none

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** | present | each bottlenose dolphin | dolphin's own signature whistle |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent whistle=Patient |
| 2 | **copy** | can | others | dolphin's own signature whistle |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **call** | to-infinitive | others *not said here* | whistle |  |  |  |  | vn initiate\_communication-37.4.2-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent it=Recipient |
| 4 | **seem** | present | dolphins |  |  |  |  |  | vn seem-109-1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Theme clause=Attribute |
| 5 | **remember** | to-infinitive | dolphins *not said here* | old companions's whistles |  |  | year |  | vn characterize-29.2-1-1 «NP V NP S\_ING»: agent=Agent whistle=Theme |
| 6 | **whistle** |  | dolphin |  |  |  |  |  | nom whistle «event intransitive»: poss=agent |
| 7 | **whistle** |  | old companions |  |  |  |  |  | nom whistle «event intransitive»: poss=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:050-how-animals-talk.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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