---
title: Animals do not think like people: much of what they do comes from in… — Thinking like an animal · tree and pragmatics
description: Animals do not think like people: much of what they do comes from instincts that helped their wild ancestors survive, and if you know the reason behind a behaviour you can predict what an animal will do next. Who acts: Animals, much, instincts, wild ancestors. A sentence of the lesson «Thinking like
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/30-thinking-like-an-animal/0/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[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/) / [Everyday](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/) / [Thinking like an animal](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/30-thinking-like-an-animal/) / 0

# Thinking like an animal, sentence 0

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Animals do not think like people: much of what they do comes from instincts that helped their wild ancestors survive, and if you know the reason behind a behaviour you can predict what an animal will do next.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Animals, much, instincts, wild ancestors, you, animal · **What happens:** not think, do, come, help, survive, know · **To what, where:** instincts, wild ancestors, reason, behaviour

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of the lesson «Thinking like an animal» 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 (Animals, much, instincts, wild ancestors), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:everyday:030-thinking-like-an-animal.lesson:0
# text = Animals do not think like people: much of what they do comes from instincts that helped their wild ancestors survive, and if you know the reason behind a behaviour you can predict what an animal will do next.
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = everyday
# lesson = 030-thinking-like-an-animal.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	Animals	animal	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nsubj	_	_
2	do	do	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
3	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	4	advmod	_	_
4	think	think	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
5	like	like	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	people	people	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obl	_	_
7	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	8	punct	_	_
8	much	much	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	nsubj	_	_
9	of	of	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
10	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	8	nmod	_	_
11	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
12	do	do	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	10	acl:relcl	_	_
13	comes	come	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	parataxis	_	_
14	from	from	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	instincts	instinct	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	obl	_	_
16	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	17	nsubj	_	_
17	helped	help	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	acl:relcl	_	_
18	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	20	nmod:poss	_	_
19	wild	wild	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	20	amod	_	_
20	ancestors	ancestor	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	obj	_	_
21	survive	survive	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	17	xcomp	_	Agree=R8-pos-agree|Haiku=17:xcomp|HaikuPos=VERB:VBP:Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin
22	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	34	punct	_	_
23	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	34	cc	_	_
24	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	26	mark	_	_
25	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	26	nsubj	_	_
26	know	know	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	34	advcl	_	_
27	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	28	det	_	_
28	reason	reason	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	26	obj	_	_
29	behind	behind	ADP	IN	_	31	case	_	_
30	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	31	det	_	_
31	behaviour	behaviour	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	28	nmod	_	_
32	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	34	nsubj	_	_
33	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	34	aux	_	_
34	predict	predict	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	conj	_	_
35	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	39	obj	_	_
36	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	37	det	_	_
37	animal	animal	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	39	nsubj	_	_
38	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	39	aux	_	_
39	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	34	ccomp	_	_
40	next	next	ADV	RB	_	39	advmod	_	_
41	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- sa -->
- form: statement
- act: assert
- voice: narrator
- polarity: none
- teacher: kept the draft

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **think** *speech: other* | present · do-support | Animals |  |  |  |  | like people | vn focus-87.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **do** | present | Animals *= animal* |  |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **come** | present | much |  |  | instincts |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme from instinct=Initial\_Location |
| 4 | **help** | past | instincts | Animals's wild ancestors |  |  |  |  | vn help-72.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent ancestor=Beneficiary clause=Theme |
| 5 | **survive** | infinitive | Animals's wild ancestors *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn exist-47.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 6 | **know** *a condition, not said to happen* | present | you | the reason |  | a behaviour |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Experiencer reason=Stimulus |
| 7 | **predict** | can | you |  |  |  |  |  | vn indicate-78 «NP V how S»: agent=Pivot clause=Topic |
| 8 | **do** | future | a animal |  |  |  |  | next *property* | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent what=Eventuality |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**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:030-thinking-like-an-animal.lesson:0`.

**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/).

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [Wild birds, bats and germs from animals, 22](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/29-germs-from-animals/22/)
- next →: [Thinking like an animal, 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/30-thinking-like-an-animal/1/)
- ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/30-thinking-like-an-animal/)