--- title: Real life: the first true writing grew from pictures and counting ma… — Just So Stories, How the First Letter Was Writte… · tree and pragmatics description: Real life: the first true writing grew from pictures and counting marks used by traders and temple workers in Mesopotamia about 5,000 years ago, to keep records of grain, sheep and beer. Who acts: first true writing. A sentence of the lesson «Just So Stories, How the First Letter Was Written, part 3 --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/86-justso-first-letter-3-a-great-invention/26/) [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/86-justso-first-letter-3-a-great-invention/) / 26 # Just So Stories, How the First Letter Was Written, part 3: «a great invention» and the road on Merrow Down, sentence 26 Real life: the first true writing grew from pictures and counting marks used by traders and temple workers in Mesopotamia about 5,000 years ago, to keep records of grain, sheep and beer. **Who acts:** first true writing · **What happens:** grow, count, use, keep, record · **To what, where:** Mesopotamia, marks, records, grain This is a sentence of the lesson «Just So Stories, How the First Letter Was Written, part 3: «a great invention» and the road on Merrow Down» 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: who acts (first true writing), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree. ## The tree {#tree} ```conllu # sent_id = school:books:086-justso-first-letter-3-a-great-invention.lesson:26 # text = Real life: the first true writing grew from pictures and counting marks used by traders and temple workers in Mesopotamia about 5,000 years ago, to keep records of grain, sheep and beer. # source = school lesson (ours) # course = books # lesson = 086-justso-first-letter-3-a-great-invention.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, R6-punct-agree ×1 1 Real real ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 2 amod _ _ 2 life life NOUN NN Number=Sing 7 appos _ _ 3 : : PUNCT : _ 2 punct _ _ 4 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 7 det _ _ 5 first first ADJ JJ Degree=Pos|NumForm=Word|NumType=Ord 7 amod _ _ 6 true true ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 7 amod _ _ 7 writing writing NOUN NN Number=Sing 8 nsubj _ _ 8 grew grow VERB VBD Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 0 root _ _ 9 from from ADP IN _ 10 case _ _ 10 pictures picture NOUN NNS Number=Plur 8 obl _ _ 11 and and CCONJ CC _ 12 cc _ _ 12 counting count VERB VBG Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part 10 conj _ _ 13 marks mark NOUN NNS Number=Plur 10 conj _ Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=12:obj 14 used use VERB VBN Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass 13 acl _ _ 15 by by ADP IN _ 16 case _ _ 16 traders trader NOUN NNS Number=Plur 14 obl:agent _ _ 17 and and CCONJ CC _ 19 cc _ _ 18 temple temple NOUN NN Number=Sing 19 compound _ _ 19 workers worker NOUN NNS Number=Plur 16 conj _ _ 20 in in ADP IN _ 21 case _ _ 21 Mesopotamia Mesopotamia PROPN NNP Number=Sing 12 obl _ _ 22 about about ADV RB _ 23 advmod _ _ 23 5,000 5000 NUM CD NumForm=Digit|NumType=Card 24 nummod _ _ 24 years year NOUN NNS Number=Plur 25 obl:unmarked _ _ 25 ago ago ADV RB _ 12 advmod _ _ 26 , , PUNCT , _ 28 punct _ _ 27 to to PART TO _ 28 mark _ _ 28 keep keep VERB VB VerbForm=Inf 12 conj _ _ 29 records record NOUN NNS Number=Plur 28 obj _ _ 30 of of ADP IN _ 31 case _ _ 31 grain grain NOUN NN Number=Sing 29 nmod _ _ 32 , , PUNCT , _ 33 punct _ _ 33 sheep sheep NOUN NNS Number=Plur 31 conj _ Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=28:obj 34 and and CCONJ CC _ 35 cc _ _ 35 beer beer NOUN NN Number=Sing 33 conj _ _ 36 . . PUNCT . _ 2 punct _ Agree=R6-punct-agree|Haiku=8:punct ``` ## Pragmatics {#pragmatics} No stored speech act for this sentence. | # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 1 | **grow** | past | the first true writing | | | | | from pictures and marks | vn grow-26.2.1 «NP.product V PP.patient»: agent=Product from picture=Patient | | 2 | **count** | gerund | the first true writing *not said here* | | | Mesopotamia | | ago *property* | vn matter-91 «NP V»: agent=Stimulus | | 3 | **use** | participle | | marks *not said here* | | | | | vn eat-39.1 «NP V»: agent=Agent | | 4 | **keep** | to-infinitive | the first true writing *not said here* | records of grain and sheep and beer | | | | | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent record=Theme | | 5 | **record** | | | grain and sheep and beer | | | | | nom record «communication transitive»: of=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:books:086-justso-first-letter-3-a-great-invention.lesson:26`. **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, R6-punct-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…, 25](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/86-justso-first-letter-3-a-great-invention/25/) - next →: [Just So Stories, How the First Letter…, 27](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/86-justso-first-letter-3-a-great-invention/27/) - ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/86-justso-first-letter-3-a-great-invention/)