--- title: Your cat meowing at the fridge door is talking to you, not to other… — How animals talk · tree and pragmatics description: Your cat meowing at the fridge door is talking to you, not to other cats: adult cats rarely meow to each other, so the meow is a language cats invented for people. Who acts: cat, adult cats, meow, cats. A sentence of the lesson «How animals talk» of the biology course of Mova's primary school with i --- [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/2/) [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/) / 2 # How animals talk, sentence 2 Your cat meowing at the fridge door is talking to you, not to other cats: adult cats rarely meow to each other, so the meow is a language cats invented for people. **Who acts:** cat, adult cats, meow, cats · **What happens:** meow, talk, be, invent · **To what, where:** you, each, language 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 (cat, adult cats, meow, cats), 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:2 # text = Your cat meowing at the fridge door is talking to you, not to other cats: adult cats rarely meow to each other, so the meow is a language cats invented for people. # 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): R8-pos-agree ×1 1 Your your PRON PRP$ Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs 2 nmod:poss _ _ 2 cat cat NOUN NN Number=Sing 9 nsubj _ _ 3 meowing meow VERB VBG VerbForm=Ger 2 acl _ _ 4 at at ADP IN _ 7 case _ _ 5 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 7 det _ _ 6 fridge fridge NOUN NN Number=Sing 7 compound _ _ 7 door door NOUN NN Number=Sing 3 obl _ _ 8 is be AUX VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 9 aux _ _ 9 talking talk VERB VBG Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part 0 root _ _ 10 to to ADP IN _ 11 case _ _ 11 you you PRON PRP Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs 9 obl _ _ 12 , , PUNCT , _ 16 punct _ _ 13 not not PART RB Polarity=Neg 16 advmod _ _ 14 to to ADP IN _ 16 case _ _ 15 other other ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 16 amod _ _ 16 cats cat NOUN NNS Number=Plur 9 obl _ _ 17 : : PUNCT : _ 21 punct _ _ 18 adult adult ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 19 amod _ _ 19 cats cat NOUN NNS Number=Plur 21 nsubj _ _ 20 rarely rarely ADV RB _ 21 advmod _ _ 21 meow meow VERB VBP Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 9 parataxis _ Agree=R8-pos-agree|Haiku=9:parataxis|HaikuPos=VERB:VB:VerbForm=Inf 22 to to ADP IN _ 23 case _ _ 23 each each DET DT ExtPos=PRON|PronType=Rcp 21 obl _ _ 24 other other ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 23 fixed _ _ 25 , , PUNCT , _ 32 punct _ _ 26 so so ADV RB _ 31 advmod _ _ 27 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 28 det _ _ 28 meow meow NOUN NN Number=Sing 31 nsubj _ _ 29 is be AUX VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 31 cop _ _ 30 a a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 31 det _ _ 31 language language NOUN NN Number=Sing 21 parataxis _ _ 32 cats cat NOUN NNS Number=Plur 33 nsubj _ _ 33 invented invent VERB VBN Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass 31 acl:relcl _ _ 34 for for ADP IN _ 35 case _ _ 35 people people NOUN NNS Number=Plur 33 obl _ _ 36 . . PUNCT . _ 9 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 | **meow** | gerund | Your cat *not said here* | | | | | at the fridge door | vn animal\_sounds-38 «NP V PP.stimulus»: agent=Agent at door=Stimulus | | 2 | **talk** | present · progressive | Your cat | | you | | | to other cats | vn talk-37.5 «NP V PP.co-agent»: agent=Agent to you=Co-Agent | | 3 | **meow** | present | adult cats | | each | | | rarely *property* | vn animal\_sounds-38 «NP V PP.recipient»: agent=Agent to each=Recipient | | 4 | **is a** | present | the meow | a language | | | | | tree rules | | 5 | **invent** | participle | cats | a language *not said here* | | | | for people | vn create-26.4-1 «NP V NP PP.beneficiary»: agent=Agent language=Result for people=Beneficiary | 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:2`. **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): R8-pos-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, 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/50-how-animals-talk/1/) - next →: [How animals talk, 3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/50-how-animals-talk/3/) - ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/50-how-animals-talk/)