---
title: Babbling, repeating sounds like "ba-ba" and "da-da", usually starts… — How babies learn to talk · tree and pragmatics
description: Babbling, repeating sounds like "ba-ba" and "da-da", usually starts around six months; it is practice, not real words yet. Who acts: Babbling. A sentence of the lesson «How babies learn to talk» of the language course of Mova's primary school with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clau
---

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# How babies learn to talk, sentence 5

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Babbling, repeating sounds like "ba-ba" and "da-da", usually starts around six months; it is practice, not real words yet.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Babbling · **What happens:** repeat, start, be · **To what, where:** practice

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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 (Babbling), 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:5
# text = Babbling, repeating sounds like "ba-ba" and "da-da", usually starts around six months; it is practice, not real words yet.
# 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): R6-punct-agree ×2, R7-rel-agree ×1
1	Babbling	babbling	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	nsubj	_	_
2	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	1	punct	_	_
3	repeating	repeat	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	4	amod	_	_
4	sounds	sound	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	1	appos	_	_
5	like	like	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
6	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	9	punct	_	_
7	ba	ba	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	compound	_	_
8	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	9	punct	_	Agree=R6-punct-agree|Haiku=7:punct
9	ba	ba	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nmod	_	_
10	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	9	punct	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
12	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	15	punct	_	_
13	da	da	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	compound	_	_
14	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	15	punct	_	Agree=R6-punct-agree|Haiku=13:punct
15	da	da	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	conj	_	_
16	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	15	punct	_	_
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
18	usually	usually	ADV	RB	_	19	advmod	_	_
19	starts	start	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
20	around	around	ADV	RB	_	21	advmod	_	_
21	six	six	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	22	nummod	_	_
22	months	month	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	19	obl:unmarked	_	_
23	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	26	punct	_	_
24	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	26	nsubj	_	_
25	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	26	cop	_	_
26	practice	practice	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	conj	_	_
27	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	30	punct	_	_
28	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	30	advmod	_	_
29	real	real	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	30	amod	_	_
30	words	word	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	26	parataxis	_	Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=26:appos
31	yet	yet	ADV	RB	_	30	advmod	_	_
32	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	19	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 | **repeat** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP.eventuality V»: agent=Eventuality |
| 2 | **start** | present | Babbling |  |  |  | month | usually *property* | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP.eventuality V»: agent=Eventuality |
| 3 | **is a** | present | Babbling | practice |  |  |  |  | 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:language:031-how-babies-learn-to-talk.lesson:5`.

**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): R6-punct-agree ×2, 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/).

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