--- title: Babies start learning language before they can say a single word: ne… — How babies learn to talk · tree and pragmatics description: Babies start learning language before they can say a single word: newborns already prefer their mother's voice and the sounds of the language they heard before they were born. Who acts: Babies, newborns. A sentence of the lesson «How babies learn to talk» of the language course of Mova's primary sch --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/31-how-babies-learn-to-talk/0/) [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/) / [Language](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/) / [How babies learn to talk](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/31-how-babies-learn-to-talk/) / 0 # How babies learn to talk, sentence 0 Babies start learning language before they can say a single word: newborns already prefer their mother's voice and the sounds of the language they heard before they were born. **Who acts:** Babies, newborns · **What happens:** start, learn, say, prefer, hear, bear · **To what, where:** language, single word, voice, Babies · **Speech:** someone speaks here This is a sentence of the lesson «How babies learn to talk» of the language 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, newborns), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree. ## The tree {#tree} ```conllu # sent_id = school:language:031-how-babies-learn-to-talk.lesson:0 # text = Babies start learning language before they can say a single word: newborns already prefer their mother's voice and the sounds of the language they heard before they were born. # source = school lesson (ours) # course = language # lesson = 031-how-babies-learn-to-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 Babies baby NOUN NNS Number=Plur 2 nsubj _ _ 2 start start VERB VBP Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 0 root _ _ 3 learning learn VERB VBG VerbForm=Ger 2 xcomp _ _ 4 language language NOUN NN Number=Sing 3 obj _ _ 5 before before SCONJ IN _ 8 mark _ _ 6 they they PRON PRP Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs 8 nsubj _ _ 7 can can AUX MD VerbForm=Fin 8 aux _ _ 8 say say VERB VB VerbForm=Inf 2 advcl _ _ 9 a a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 11 det _ _ 10 single single ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 11 amod _ _ 11 word word NOUN NN Number=Sing 8 obj _ _ 12 : : PUNCT : _ 15 punct _ _ 13 newborns newborn NOUN NNS Number=Plur 15 nsubj _ _ 14 already already ADV RB _ 15 advmod _ _ 15 prefer prefer VERB VBP Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 2 parataxis _ _ 16 their their PRON PRP$ Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs 17 nmod:poss _ _ 17 mother mother NOUN NN Number=Sing 19 nmod:poss _ _ 18 's 's PART POS _ 17 case _ _ 19 voice voice NOUN NN Number=Sing 15 obj _ _ 20 and and CCONJ CC _ 22 cc _ _ 21 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 22 det _ _ 22 sounds sound NOUN NNS Number=Plur 19 conj _ _ 23 of of ADP IN _ 25 case _ _ 24 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 25 det _ _ 25 language language NOUN NN Number=Sing 22 nmod _ _ 26 they they PRON PRP Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs 27 nsubj _ _ 27 heard hear VERB VBD Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 25 acl:relcl _ _ 28 before before SCONJ IN _ 31 mark _ _ 29 they they PRON PRP Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs 31 nsubj:pass _ _ 30 were be AUX VBD Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 31 aux:pass _ _ 31 born bear VERB VBN Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass 27 advcl _ _ 32 . . PUNCT . _ 2 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 | **start** | present | Babies | | | | | | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality | | 2 | **learn** | gerund | Babies *not said here* | language | | | | | vn learn-14-2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent language=Topic | | 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | can | Babies *= baby* | a single word | | | | | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent word=Topic | | 4 | **prefer** | present | newborns | newborns's mother's voice and the sounds of the language | | | | | vn admire-31.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer voice=Stimulus | | 5 | **hear** | past | Babies *= baby* | the language *not said here* | | | | | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V S»: agent=Experiencer language=Stimulus | | 6 | **bear** | past · passive | | Babies *= baby* | | | | | vn birth-28.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: subject=Patient | 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:language:031-how-babies-learn-to-talk.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): 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/). - ← previous: [Texting, abbreviations and emoji, 13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/30-texting-abbreviations-and-emoji/13/) - next →: [How babies learn to talk, 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/31-how-babies-learn-to-talk/1/) - ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/31-how-babies-learn-to-talk/)