---
title: Babies cry because crying is the only way they can tell us they are… — Family changes and grief · tree and pragmatics
description: Babies cry because crying is the only way they can tell us they are hungry, tired or uncomfortable, so we are patient. Who acts: Babies, crying, Families, we. A sentence of the lesson «Family changes and grief» of the everyday course of Mova's primary school with its dependency tree and the pragmati
---

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# Family changes and grief, sentence 1

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Babies cry because crying is the only way they can tell us they are hungry, tired or uncomfortable, so we are patient.

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**Who acts:** Babies, crying, Families, we · **What happens:** cry, be, tell · **To what, where:** only way, us · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of the lesson «Family changes and grief» of the everyday 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 (Babies, crying, Families, we), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:everyday:214-family-changes-and-grief.lesson:1
# text = Babies cry because crying is the only way they can tell us they are hungry, tired or uncomfortable, so we are patient.
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = everyday
# lesson = 214-family-changes-and-grief.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, R8-pos-agree ×1
1	Babies	baby	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	nsubj	_	_
2	cry	cry	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	because	because	SCONJ	IN	_	4	mark	_	_
4	crying	crying	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	Agree=R8-pos-agree|Haiku=8:nsubj|HaikuPos=VERB:VBG:Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part
5	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	8	cop	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
7	only	only	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	way	way	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	advcl	_	_
9	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
10	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
11	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	acl:relcl	_	_
12	us	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	11	iobj	_	_
13	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
14	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	15	cop	_	_
15	hungry	hungry	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	ccomp	_	_
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
17	tired	tired	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	conj	_	_
18	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
19	uncomfortable	uncomfortable	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	conj	_	_
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	24	punct	_	_
21	so	so	ADV	RB	_	24	advmod	_	_
22	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	24	nsubj	_	_
23	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	24	cop	_	_
24	patient	patient	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	parataxis	_	Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=2:conj
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .note -->
No stored speech act for this sentence.

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **cry** *speech: express* | present | Babies |  |  |  |  |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **is a** | present | crying | the only way |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **tell** *speech: assert* | can | Families *= family* | the only way *not said here* | us |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent we=Recipient |
| 4 | **is** | present | Families *= family* |  |  |  |  | hungry *property* | tree rules |
| 5 | **be** |  | Families *= family* *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 6 | **be** |  | Families *= family* *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 7 | **is** | present | we |  |  |  |  | patient *property* | tree rules |

<!-- .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:everyday:214-family-changes-and-grief.lesson:1`.

**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, 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/).

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