--- title: Prairie dogs give alarm calls that seem to change for different pred… — How animals talk · tree and pragmatics description: Prairie dogs give alarm calls that seem to change for different predators, and some studies suggest they carry details such as size or colour, though scientists still argue how much. Who acts: Prairie dogs, alarm calls, studies, scientists. A sentence of the lesson «How animals talk» of the biology --- [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/6/) [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/) / 6 # How animals talk, sentence 6 Prairie dogs give alarm calls that seem to change for different predators, and some studies suggest they carry details such as size or colour, though scientists still argue how much. **Who acts:** Prairie dogs, alarm calls, studies, scientists · **What happens:** give, seem, change, suggest, carry, argue · **To what, where:** alarm calls, details, much · **Speech:** someone speaks here 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 (Prairie dogs, alarm calls, studies, scientists), 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:6 # text = Prairie dogs give alarm calls that seem to change for different predators, and some studies suggest they carry details such as size or colour, though scientists still argue how much. # 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): R7-rel-agree ×1 1 Prairie prairie NOUN NN Number=Sing 2 compound _ _ 2 dogs dog NOUN NNS Number=Plur 3 nsubj _ _ 3 give give VERB VBP Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 0 root _ _ 4 alarm alarm NOUN NN Number=Sing 5 compound _ _ 5 calls call NOUN NNS Number=Plur 3 obj _ _ 6 that that PRON WDT PronType=Rel 7 nsubj _ _ 7 seem seem VERB VBP Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 5 acl:relcl _ _ 8 to to PART TO _ 9 mark _ _ 9 change change VERB VB VerbForm=Inf 7 xcomp _ _ 10 for for ADP IN _ 12 case _ _ 11 different different ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 12 amod _ _ 12 predators predator NOUN NNS Number=Plur 9 obl _ _ 13 , , PUNCT , _ 17 punct _ _ 14 and and CCONJ CC _ 17 cc _ _ 15 some some DET DT PronType=Ind 16 det _ _ 16 studies study NOUN NNS Number=Plur 17 nsubj _ _ 17 suggest suggest VERB VBP Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 3 conj _ Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=3:parataxis 18 they they PRON PRP Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs 19 nsubj _ _ 19 carry carry VERB VBP Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 17 ccomp _ _ 20 details detail NOUN NNS Number=Plur 19 obj _ _ 21 such such ADJ JJ Degree=Pos|ExtPos=ADP 23 case _ _ 22 as as ADP IN _ 21 fixed _ _ 23 size size NOUN NN Number=Sing 20 nmod _ _ 24 or or CCONJ CC _ 25 cc _ _ 25 colour colour NOUN NN Number=Sing 23 conj _ _ 26 , , PUNCT , _ 30 punct _ _ 27 though though SCONJ IN _ 30 mark _ _ 28 scientists scientist NOUN NNS Number=Plur 30 nsubj _ _ 29 still still ADV RB _ 30 advmod _ _ 30 argue argue VERB VBP Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 3 parataxis _ _ 31 how how ADV WRB PronType=Int 32 advmod _ _ 32 much much ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 30 obj _ _ 33 . . PUNCT . _ 3 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 | **give** | present | Prairie dogs | alarm calls | | | | | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent call=Theme | | 2 | **seem** | present | alarm calls | | | | | | vn seem-109-1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Theme clause=Attribute | | 3 | **change** | to-infinitive | alarm calls *not said here* | | | | | for different predators | vn dress-41.1.1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent | | 4 | **suggest** *speech: suggest* | present | some studies | | | | | | vn say-37.7-1-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic | | 5 | **carry** | present | studies *= study* | details | | | | such size or colour | vn carry-11.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent detail=Theme | | 6 | **argue** *speech: disagree* | present | scientists | much | | | still | | vn correspond-36.1-1 «NP V S»: agent=Agent much=Topic | 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:6`. **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): 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, 5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/50-how-animals-talk/5/) - next →: [How animals talk, 7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/50-how-animals-talk/7/) - ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/50-how-animals-talk/)