--- title: Chinese alchemists discovered gunpowder, probably while looking for… — Ancient China: paper, silk, the Silk Road and Co… · tree and pragmatics description: Chinese alchemists discovered gunpowder, probably while looking for a medicine for long life; it was first used for fireworks and later in weapons. Who acts: Chinese alchemists. A sentence of the lesson «Ancient China: paper, silk, the Silk Road and Confucius» of the history course of Mova's primary --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/10-ancient-china-paper-silk-the-silk-road-and-confucius/14/) [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/) / [History](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/) / [Ancient China: paper, silk, the Silk R…](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/10-ancient-china-paper-silk-the-silk-road-and-confucius/) / 14 # Ancient China: paper, silk, the Silk Road and Confucius, sentence 14 Chinese alchemists discovered gunpowder, probably while looking for a medicine for long life; it was first used for fireworks and later in weapons. **Who acts:** Chinese alchemists · **What happens:** discover, look, use · **To what, where:** gunpowder, weapons This is a sentence of the lesson «Ancient China: paper, silk, the Silk Road and Confucius» of the history 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 (Chinese alchemists), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree. ## The tree {#tree} ```conllu # sent_id = school:history:010-ancient-china-paper-silk-the-silk-road-and-confucius.lesson:14 # text = Chinese alchemists discovered gunpowder, probably while looking for a medicine for long life; it was first used for fireworks and later in weapons. # source = school lesson (ours) # course = history # lesson = 010-ancient-china-paper-silk-the-silk-road-and-confucius.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 ×2 1 Chinese Chinese ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 2 amod _ _ 2 alchemists alchemist NOUN NNS Number=Plur 3 nsubj _ _ 3 discovered discover VERB VBD Mood=Ind|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 0 root _ _ 4 gunpowder gunpowder NOUN NN Number=Sing 3 obj _ Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=3:conj 5 , , PUNCT , _ 8 punct _ _ 6 probably probably ADV RB _ 8 advmod _ _ 7 while while SCONJ IN _ 8 mark _ _ 8 looking look VERB VBG VerbForm=Ger 3 advcl _ _ 9 for for ADP IN _ 11 case _ _ 10 a a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 11 det _ _ 11 medicine medicine NOUN NN Number=Sing 8 obl _ _ 12 for for ADP IN _ 14 case _ _ 13 long long ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 14 amod _ _ 14 life life NOUN NN Number=Sing 11 nmod _ _ 15 ; ; PUNCT , _ 19 punct _ _ 16 it it PRON PRP Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs 19 nsubj:pass _ _ 17 was be AUX VBD Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 19 aux:pass _ _ 18 first first ADV RB NumForm=Word|NumType=Ord 19 advmod _ _ 19 used use VERB VBN Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass 3 parataxis _ Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=3:conj 20 for for ADP IN _ 21 case _ _ 21 fireworks firework NOUN NNS Number=Plur 19 obl _ _ 22 and and CCONJ CC _ 23 cc _ _ 23 later late ADV RBR Degree=Cmp 19 advmod _ _ 24 in in ADP IN _ 25 case _ _ 25 weapons weapon NOUN NNS Number=Plur 19 obl _ _ 26 . . PUNCT . _ 3 punct _ _ ``` ## Pragmatics {#pragmatics} - form: statement - act: assert - voice: narrator - polarity: none - teacher: kept the draft | # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 1 | **discover** | past | Chinese alchemists | gunpowder | | | | | vn discover-84-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent gunpowder=Topic | | 2 | **look** | gerund | Chinese alchemists *not said here* | | | | | for a medicine for long life; probably *property* | vn rummage-35.5 «NP V PP.location PP.theme»: agent=Agent for medicine=Theme | | 3 | **use** | past · passive | | gunpowder | | weapons | | for fireworks; first, late *property* | vn use-105.1 «NP V NP PP.predicate»: subject=Theme for firework=Eventuality | 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:history:010-ancient-china-paper-silk-the-silk-road-and-confucius.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): R7-rel-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/). - ← previous: [Ancient China: paper, silk, the Silk R…, 13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/10-ancient-china-paper-silk-the-silk-road-and-confucius/13/) - next →: [Ancient China: paper, silk, the Silk R…, 15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/10-ancient-china-paper-silk-the-silk-road-and-confucius/15/) - ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/10-ancient-china-paper-silk-the-silk-road-and-confucius/)