--- title: Writing was invented about 5,000 years ago, first in Mesopotamia (no… — Just So Stories, How the First Letter Was Writte… · tree and pragmatics description: Writing was invented about 5,000 years ago, first in Mesopotamia (now Iraq) and Egypt, and later, separately, in China and in Central America. A sentence of the lesson «Just So Stories, How the First Letter Was Written, part 1: a broken spear and a picture on birch-bark» of the books course of Mova' --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/84-justso-first-letter-1-a-broken-spear/27/) [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/) / [Books](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/) / [Just So Stories, How the First Letter…](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/84-justso-first-letter-1-a-broken-spear/) / 27 # Just So Stories, How the First Letter Was Written, part 1: a broken spear and a picture on birch-bark, sentence 27 Writing was invented about 5,000 years ago, first in Mesopotamia (now Iraq) and Egypt, and later, separately, in China and in Central America. **What happens:** invent · **To what, where:** Writing, Mesopotamia This is a sentence of the lesson «Just So Stories, How the First Letter Was Written, part 1: a broken spear and a picture on birch-bark» of the books 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: what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree. ## The tree {#tree} ```conllu # sent_id = school:books:084-justso-first-letter-1-a-broken-spear.lesson:27 # text = Writing was invented about 5,000 years ago, first in Mesopotamia (now Iraq) and Egypt, and later, separately, in China and in Central America. # source = school lesson (ours) # course = books # lesson = 084-justso-first-letter-1-a-broken-spear.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): R5-strong ×2, R7-rel-agree ×1 1 Writing writing NOUN NN Number=Sing 3 nsubj:pass _ _ 2 was be AUX VBD Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 3 aux:pass _ _ 3 invented invent VERB VBN Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass 0 root _ _ 4 about about ADV RB _ 5 advmod _ Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=5:case|HaikuPos=ADP:IN:_ 5 5,000 5000 NUM CD NumForm=Digit|NumType=Card 6 nummod _ _ 6 years year NOUN NNS Number=Plur 7 obl:unmarked _ Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=3:obl:unmarked 7 ago ago ADV RB _ 3 advmod _ Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=6:advmod 8 , , PUNCT , _ 9 punct _ _ 9 first first ADV RB NumForm=Word|NumType=Ord 3 advmod _ _ 10 in in ADP IN _ 11 case _ _ 11 Mesopotamia Mesopotamia PROPN NNP Number=Sing 3 obl _ _ 12 ( ( PUNCT -LRB- _ 14 punct _ _ 13 now now ADV RB PronType=Dem 14 advmod _ _ 14 Iraq Iraq PROPN NNP Number=Sing 11 appos _ _ 15 ) ) PUNCT -RRB- _ 14 punct _ _ 16 and and CCONJ CC _ 17 cc _ _ 17 Egypt Egypt PROPN NNP Number=Sing 11 conj _ _ 18 , , PUNCT , _ 20 punct _ _ 19 and and CCONJ CC _ 20 cc _ _ 20 later late ADV RBR Degree=Cmp 3 advmod _ _ 21 , , PUNCT , _ 22 punct _ _ 22 separately separately ADV RB _ 3 advmod _ _ 23 , , PUNCT , _ 25 punct _ _ 24 in in ADP IN _ 25 case _ _ 25 China China PROPN NNP Number=Sing 3 obl _ _ 26 and and CCONJ CC _ 29 cc _ _ 27 in in ADP IN _ 29 case _ _ 28 Central Central PROPN NNP Number=Sing 29 flat _ _ 29 America America PROPN NNP Number=Sing 25 conj _ _ 30 . . PUNCT . _ 3 punct _ _ ``` ## Pragmatics {#pragmatics} - form: statement - act: assert - voice: narrator - polarity: none - teacher: changed polarity=none, act=assert | # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 1 | **invent** | past · passive | | Writing | | Mesopotamia and Egypt | | in China and Central America; ago, first, late, separately *property* | vn create-26.4-1 «NP V NP»: subject=Result | 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:books:084-justso-first-letter-1-a-broken-spear.lesson:27`. **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): R5-strong ×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/). - ← previous: [Just So Stories, How the First Letter…, 26](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/84-justso-first-letter-1-a-broken-spear/26/) - next →: [Just So Stories, How the First Letter…, 28](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/84-justso-first-letter-1-a-broken-spear/28/) - ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/84-justso-first-letter-1-a-broken-spear/)