---
title: Mesopotamia means the land between the rivers: the Tigris and the Eu… — Mesopotamia: the first cities and writing · tree and pragmatics
description: Mesopotamia means the land between the rivers: the Tigris and the Euphrates, in what is now mostly Iraq. Who acts: Mesopotamia, Tigris. A sentence of the lesson «Mesopotamia: the first cities and writing» of the history course of Mova's primary school with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of e
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/3-mesopotamia-first-cities-and-writing/0/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[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/) / [Mesopotamia: the first cities and writ…](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/3-mesopotamia-first-cities-and-writing/) / 0

# Mesopotamia: the first cities and writing, sentence 0

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Mesopotamia means the land between the rivers: the Tigris and the Euphrates, in what is now mostly Iraq.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Mesopotamia, Tigris · **What happens:** mean, be · **To what, where:** land, Iraq

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of the lesson «Mesopotamia: the first cities and writing» 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 (Mesopotamia, Tigris), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:history:003-mesopotamia-first-cities-and-writing.lesson:0
# text = Mesopotamia means the land between the rivers: the Tigris and the Euphrates, in what is now mostly Iraq.
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = history
# lesson = 003-mesopotamia-first-cities-and-writing.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	Mesopotamia	Mesopotamia	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	_
2	means	mean	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	land	land	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
5	between	between	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	rivers	river	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nmod	_	_
8	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	10	punct	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	Tigris	Tigris	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	4	appos	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	Euphrates	euphrates	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	conj	_	_
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
15	in	in	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
16	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	20	nsubj	_	_
17	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	20	cop	_	_
18	now	now	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	20	advmod	_	_
19	mostly	mostly	ADV	RB	_	20	advmod	_	_
20	Iraq	Iraq	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	10	obl	_	_
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- sa -->
- form: statement
- act: assert
- voice: narrator
- polarity: none
- teacher: kept the draft

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **mean** | present | Mesopotamia | the land |  |  |  | between the rivers | vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent land=Topic |
| 2 | **is** | present | the Tigris and the Euphrates |  |  | Iraq | now | mostly *property* | tree rules |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**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:003-mesopotamia-first-cities-and-writing.lesson:0`.

**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/).

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [The first farms and towns, 20](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/2-the-first-farms-and-towns/20/)
- next →: [Mesopotamia: the first cities and writ…, 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/3-mesopotamia-first-cities-and-writing/1/)
- ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/3-mesopotamia-first-cities-and-writing/)