---
title: Black, white and green peppercorns are the same berry of a climbing… — Nuts, beans, seeds and spices · tree and pragmatics
description: Black, white and green peppercorns are the same berry of a climbing vine from India, and pepper was once so valuable it was used to pay rent; a peppercorn rent now means a tiny token payment. Who acts: Black peppercorns, pepper, peppercorn rent. A sentence of the lesson «Nuts, beans, seeds and spice
---

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# Nuts, beans, seeds and spices, sentence 17

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Black, white and green peppercorns are the same berry of a climbing vine from India, and pepper was once so valuable it was used to pay rent; a peppercorn rent now means a tiny token payment.

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**Who acts:** Black peppercorns, pepper, peppercorn rent · **What happens:** be, use, pay, mean · **To what, where:** same berry, pepper, rent, tiny token payment

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This is a sentence of the lesson «Nuts, beans, seeds and spices» 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 (Black peppercorns, pepper, peppercorn rent), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:biology:348-nuts-beans-seeds-and-spices.lesson:17
# text = Black, white and green peppercorns are the same berry of a climbing vine from India, and pepper was once so valuable it was used to pay rent; a peppercorn rent now means a tiny token payment.
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = biology
# lesson = 348-nuts-beans-seeds-and-spices.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	Black	black	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
2	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
3	white	white	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	1	conj	_	_
4	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
5	green	green	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	1	conj	_	_
6	peppercorns	peppercorn	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	nsubj	_	_
7	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	10	cop	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
9	same	same	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	berry	berry	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
11	of	of	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
12	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
13	climbing	climbing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	compound	_	_
14	vine	vine	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nmod	_	_
15	from	from	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
16	India	India	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	14	nmod	_	_
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
18	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	23	cc	_	_
19	pepper	pepper	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	nsubj	_	_
20	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	23	cop	_	_
21	once	once	ADV	RB	_	23	advmod	_	_
22	so	so	ADV	RB	_	23	advmod	_	_
23	valuable	valuable	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	conj	_	_
24	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	26	nsubj:pass	_	_
25	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	26	aux:pass	_	_
26	used	use	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	23	advcl	_	_
27	to	to	PART	TO	_	28	mark	_	_
28	pay	pay	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	26	xcomp	_	_
29	rent	rent	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	28	obj	_	_
30	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	35	punct	_	_
31	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	33	det	_	_
32	peppercorn	peppercorn	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	33	compound	_	_
33	rent	rent	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	35	nsubj	_	_
34	now	now	ADV	RB	_	35	advmod	_	_
35	means	mean	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	10	parataxis	_	_
36	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	39	det	_	_
37	tiny	tiny	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	39	amod	_	_
38	token	token	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	39	compound	_	Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=39:amod|HaikuPos=ADJ:JJ:Degree=Pos
39	payment	payment	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	35	obj	_	_
40	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	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 | **is a** | present | Black peppercorns | the same berry |  |  |  | of a climbing vine from India | tree rules |
| 2 | **is** | past | pepper |  |  |  |  | once, valuable *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **use** | past · passive |  | pepper |  |  |  |  | vn use-105.1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: subject=Theme clause=Eventuality |
| 4 | **pay** | to-infinitive |  | rent |  |  |  |  | vn pay-68-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent rent=Asset |
| 5 | **mean** | present | a peppercorn rent | a tiny token payment |  |  | now |  | vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent payment=Topic |

<!-- .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:biology:348-nuts-beans-seeds-and-spices.lesson:17`.

**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/).

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