---
title: With so much grain and so many sheep to count, people needed a way t… — Mesopotamia: the first cities and writing · tree and pragmatics
description: With so much grain and so many sheep to count, people needed a way to remember who owned what, like a shop writing down what you owe. Who acts: people, shop, you. A sentence of the lesson «Mesopotamia: the first cities and writing» of the history course of Mova's primary school with its dependency t
---

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# Mesopotamia: the first cities and writing, sentence 4

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
With so much grain and so many sheep to count, people needed a way to remember who owned what, like a shop writing down what you owe.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** people, shop, you · **What happens:** count, need, remember, own, write down, owe · **To what, where:** way · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .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 (people, shop, you), 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:4
# text = With so much grain and so many sheep to count, people needed a way to remember who owned what, like a shop writing down what you owe.
# 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	With	with	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
2	so	so	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
3	much	much	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	grain	grain	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	_
5	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
6	so	so	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
7	many	many	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	sheep	sheep	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	conj	_	_
9	to	to	PART	TO	_	10	mark	_	_
10	count	count	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	acl	_	_
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
12	people	people	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	nsubj	_	_
13	needed	need	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
14	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	way	way	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	_
16	to	to	PART	TO	_	17	mark	_	_
17	remember	remember	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	acl	_	_
18	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	19	nsubj	_	_
19	owned	own	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	ccomp	_	_
20	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	19	obj	_	_
21	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	25	punct	_	_
22	like	like	SCONJ	IN	_	25	mark	_	_
23	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
24	shop	shop	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	nsubj	_	_
25	writing	write	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	13	advcl	_	_
26	down	down	ADP	RP	_	25	compound:prt	_	_
27	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	25	obj	_	_
28	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	29	nsubj	_	_
29	owe	owe	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	27	acl:relcl	_	_
30	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	13	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .note -->
No stored speech act for this sentence.

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **count** | to-infinitive | people *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn matter-91 «NP V»: agent=Stimulus |
| 2 | **need** | past | people | a way |  |  |  | with much grain and many sheep | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: agent=Pivot way=Theme |
| 3 | **remember** | to-infinitive | people *not said here* | a way *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn characterize-29.2-1-1 «NP V what S»: agent=Agent clause=Theme |
| 4 | **own** | past |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn own-100.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Pivot what=Theme |
| 5 | **write down** | gerund | a shop |  |  |  |  |  | vn scribble-25.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent what=Theme |
| 6 | **owe** | present | you |  |  |  |  |  | vn future\_having-13.3 «NP V NP.theme (PP)»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .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:4`.

**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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