---
title: A French attempt to dig a canal in Panama at sea level, without lock… — Canals: Suez, Panama and the shortcuts · tree and pragmatics
description: A French attempt to dig a canal in Panama at sea level, without locks, in the 1880s failed after about 22,000 workers died, mostly from malaria and yellow fever, and the Americans later succeeded by fighting the mosquitoes that spread those illnesses and by using locks. Who acts: French attempt, 22,
---

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# Canals: Suez, Panama and the shortcuts, sentence 14

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A French attempt to dig a canal in Panama at sea level, without locks, in the 1880s failed after about 22,000 workers died, mostly from malaria and yellow fever, and the Americans later succeeded by fighting the mosquitoes that spread those illnesses and by using locks.

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**Who acts:** French attempt, 22,000 workers, Americans, mosquitoes · **What happens:** dig, fail, die, succeed, fight, spread · **To what, where:** canal, Panama, 1880s, malaria, mosquitoes, illnesses

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This is a sentence of the lesson «Canals: Suez, Panama and the shortcuts» of the geography 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 (French attempt, 22,000 workers, Americans, mosquitoes), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:geography:020-canals-suez-panama-and-the-shortcuts.lesson:14
# text = A French attempt to dig a canal in Panama at sea level, without locks, in the 1880s failed after about 22,000 workers died, mostly from malaria and yellow fever, and the Americans later succeeded by fighting the mosquitoes that spread those illnesses and by using locks.
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = geography
# lesson = 020-canals-suez-panama-and-the-shortcuts.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): no change
1	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	French	French	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	attempt	attempt	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	nsubj	_	_
4	to	to	PART	TO	_	5	mark	_	_
5	dig	dig	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	acl	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	canal	canal	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	_
8	in	in	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	Panama	Panama	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
10	at	at	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	sea	sea	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	compound	_	_
12	level	level	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
14	without	without	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	locks	lock	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	obl	_	_
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
17	in	in	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
18	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	1880s	1880	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	20	obl	_	_
20	failed	fail	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
21	after	after	SCONJ	IN	_	25	mark	_	_
22	about	about	ADV	RB	_	23	advmod	_	_
23	22,000	22,000	NUM	CD	NumForm=Digit|NumType=Card	24	nummod	_	_
24	workers	worker	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	25	nsubj	_	_
25	died	die	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	20	advcl	_	_
26	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	29	punct	_	_
27	mostly	mostly	ADV	RB	_	29	advmod	_	_
28	from	from	ADP	IN	_	29	case	_	_
29	malaria	malaria	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	obl	_	_
30	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	32	cc	_	_
31	yellow	yellow	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	32	amod	_	_
32	fever	fever	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	29	conj	_	_
33	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	38	punct	_	_
34	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	38	cc	_	_
35	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	36	det	_	_
36	Americans	American	PROPN	NNPS	Number=Plur	38	nsubj	_	_
37	later	late	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	38	advmod	_	_
38	succeeded	succeed	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	20	conj	_	_
39	by	by	SCONJ	IN	_	40	mark	_	_
40	fighting	fight	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	38	advcl	_	_
41	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	42	det	_	_
42	mosquitoes	mosquito	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	40	obj	_	_
43	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	44	nsubj	_	_
44	spread	spread	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	42	acl:relcl	_	_
45	those	that	DET	DT	Number=Plur|PronType=Dem	46	det	_	_
46	illnesses	illness	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	44	obj	_	_
47	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	49	cc	_	_
48	by	by	SCONJ	IN	_	49	mark	_	_
49	using	use	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	40	conj	_	_
50	locks	lock	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	49	obj	_	_
51	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	20	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- sa -->
- form: statement
- act: narrate
- voice: narrator
- polarity: none
- teacher: changed polarity=none

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **dig** | to-infinitive | a French attempt *not said here* | a canal |  | Panama |  | at sea level; without locks | vn poke-19-1-1-1 «NP V NP.instrument PP.theme»: agent=Agent canal=Instrument at level=Theme |
| 2 | **fail** | past | a French attempt |  |  | the 1880s |  |  | vn succeed-74-3-1-1 «NP V PP.eventuality S\_ING»: agent=Agent in 1880=Eventuality |
| 3 | **die** | past | 22,000 workers |  |  | malaria and yellow fever |  |  | vn die-42.4-1 «NP V PP.cause»: agent=Patient from malaria=Causer |
| 4 | **succeed** | past | the Americans |  |  |  |  | late *property* | vn succeed-74-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 5 | **fight** | gerund | the Americans *not said here* | the mosquitoes |  |  |  |  | vn battle-36.4-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent mosquito=Co-Agent |
| 6 | **spread** | past | the mosquitoes | that illnesses |  |  |  |  | vn appear-48.1.1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location illness=Theme |
| 7 | **use** | gerund | the Americans *not said here* | locks |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent lock=Patient |

<!-- .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:geography:020-canals-suez-panama-and-the-shortcuts.lesson:14`.

**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): no change. **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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