---
title: The Sumerians invented one of the first writing systems about 5,200… — Mesopotamia: the first cities and writing · tree and pragmatics
description: The Sumerians invented one of the first writing systems about 5,200 years ago; it began as little pictures used to count grain and sheep. Who acts: Sumerians, water. A sentence of the lesson «Mesopotamia: the first cities and writing» of the history course of Mova's primary school with its dependenc
---

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# Mesopotamia: the first cities and writing, sentence 12

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
The Sumerians invented one of the first writing systems about 5,200 years ago; it began as little pictures used to count grain and sheep.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Sumerians, water · **What happens:** invent, begin, use, count · **To what, where:** one, little pictures, grain

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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 (Sumerians, water), 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:12
# text = The Sumerians invented one of the first writing systems about 5,200 years ago; it began as little pictures used to count grain and sheep.
# 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): R5-strong ×2, R7-rel-agree ×1
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	Sumerians	Sumerian	PROPN	NNPS	Number=Plur	3	nsubj	_	_
3	invented	invent	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	3	obj	_	_
5	of	of	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
7	first	first	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos|NumForm=Word|NumType=Ord	9	amod	_	_
8	writing	writing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	compound	_	_
9	systems	system	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nmod	_	_
10	about	about	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	5,200	5,200	NUM	CD	NumForm=Digit|NumType=Card	12	nummod	_	_
12	years	year	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	obl:unmarked	_	Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=3:obl:unmarked
13	ago	ago	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=12:advmod
14	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	16	punct	_	_
15	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
16	began	begin	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	parataxis	_	Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=3:conj
17	as	as	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
18	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	amod	_	_
19	pictures	picture	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	obl	_	_
20	used	use	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	19	acl	_	_
21	to	to	PART	TO	_	22	mark	_	_
22	count	count	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	20	advcl	_	_
23	grain	grain	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	obj	_	_
24	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	25	cc	_	_
25	sheep	sheep	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	23	conj	_	_
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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- 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 | **invent** | past | the Sumerians | one of the first writing systems |  |  |  | ago *property* | vn create-26.4-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent one=Result |
| 2 | **begin** | past | water |  |  |  |  | as little pictures | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP.eventuality V»: agent=Eventuality |
| 3 | **use** | participle |  | little pictures *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **count** | to-infinitive |  | grain and sheep |  |  |  |  | vn multiply-108 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent grain=Theme |

<!-- .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:history:003-mesopotamia-first-cities-and-writing.lesson:12`.

**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, R7-rel-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/).

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