---
title: A recount retells events in time order, usually in the past tense, u… — Writing to inform, instruct and persuade · tree and pragmatics
description: A recount retells events in time order, usually in the past tense, using time words like first, then, after that and finally. Who acts: recount. A sentence of the lesson «Writing to inform, instruct and persuade» of the english course of Mova's primary school with its dependency tree and the pragmat
---

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# Writing to inform, instruct and persuade, sentence 9

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A recount retells events in time order, usually in the past tense, using time words like first, then, after that and finally.

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**Who acts:** recount · **What happens:** retell, use · **To what, where:** events, time order, time words

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This is a sentence of the lesson «Writing to inform, instruct and persuade» of the english 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 (recount), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:english:044-writing-to-inform-instruct-and-persuade.lesson:9
# text = A recount retells events in time order, usually in the past tense, using time words like first, then, after that and finally.
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = english
# lesson = 044-writing-to-inform-instruct-and-persuade.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
1	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	recount	recount	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	retells	retell	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	events	event	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obj	_	_
5	in	in	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	compound	_	_
7	order	order	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nmod	_	_
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
9	usually	usually	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	_
10	in	in	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
12	past	past	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
13	tense	tense	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	_
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
15	using	use	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	3	advcl	_	_
16	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	compound	_	_
17	words	word	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	15	obj	_	_
18	like	like	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
19	first	first	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Ord	17	advmod	_	_
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	Agree=R6-punct-agree|Haiku=19:punct
21	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	24	advmod	_	_
22	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	Agree=R6-punct-agree|Haiku=24:punct
23	after	after	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
24	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	15	obl	_	_
25	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	26	cc	_	_
26	finally	finally	ADV	RB	_	24	conj	_	_
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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- form: statement
- act: assert
- voice: narrator
- polarity: none
- teacher: changed act=assert

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **retell** | present | a recount | events |  | time order |  | in the past tense | tree rules |
| 2 | **use** | gerund | a recount *not said here* | time words |  |  | after that |  | vn eat-39.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent word=Patient |

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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:english:044-writing-to-inform-instruct-and-persuade.lesson:9`.

**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. **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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- ← previous: [Writing to inform, instruct and persuade, 8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/44-writing-to-inform-instruct-and-persuade/8/)
- next →: [Writing to inform, instruct and persuade, 10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/44-writing-to-inform-instruct-and-persuade/10/)
- ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/44-writing-to-inform-instruct-and-persuade/)