--- title: Mesopotamian priests watched the stars and the moon and kept records… — Mesopotamia: wheels, laws and empires · tree and pragmatics description: Mesopotamian priests watched the stars and the moon and kept records of them for centuries, which helped them make calendars and predict what the sky would do. Who acts: Mesopotamian priests, centuries, priests, sky. A sentence of the lesson «Mesopotamia: wheels, laws and empires» of the history cou --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/4-mesopotamia-wheels-laws-and-empires/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/) / [Mesopotamia: wheels, laws and empires](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/4-mesopotamia-wheels-laws-and-empires/) / 14 # Mesopotamia: wheels, laws and empires, sentence 14 Mesopotamian priests watched the stars and the moon and kept records of them for centuries, which helped them make calendars and predict what the sky would do. **Who acts:** Mesopotamian priests, centuries, priests, sky · **What happens:** watch, keep, help, make, predict, do · **To what, where:** stars, records, priests, calendars This is a sentence of the lesson «Mesopotamia: wheels, laws and empires» 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 (Mesopotamian priests, centuries, priests, sky), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree. ## The tree {#tree} ```conllu # sent_id = school:history:004-mesopotamia-wheels-laws-and-empires.lesson:14 # text = Mesopotamian priests watched the stars and the moon and kept records of them for centuries, which helped them make calendars and predict what the sky would do. # source = school lesson (ours) # course = history # lesson = 004-mesopotamia-wheels-laws-and-empires.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 Mesopotamian mesopotamian ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 2 amod _ _ 2 priests priest NOUN NNS Number=Plur 3 nsubj _ _ 3 watched watch VERB VBD Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 0 root _ _ 4 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 5 det _ _ 5 stars star NOUN NNS Number=Plur 3 obj _ _ 6 and and CCONJ CC _ 8 cc _ _ 7 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 8 det _ _ 8 moon moon NOUN NN Number=Sing 5 conj _ _ 9 and and CCONJ CC _ 10 cc _ _ 10 kept keep VERB VBD Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 3 conj _ _ 11 records record NOUN NNS Number=Plur 10 obj _ _ 12 of of ADP IN _ 13 case _ _ 13 them they PRON PRP Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs 11 nmod _ _ 14 for for ADP IN _ 15 case _ _ 15 centuries century NOUN NNS Number=Plur 10 obl _ _ 16 , , PUNCT , _ 18 punct _ _ 17 which which PRON WDT PronType=Rel 18 nsubj _ _ 18 helped help VERB VBD Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 15 acl:relcl _ _ 19 them they PRON PRP Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs 18 obj _ _ 20 make make VERB VB VerbForm=Inf 18 xcomp _ _ 21 calendars calendar NOUN NNS Number=Plur 20 obj _ _ 22 and and CCONJ CC _ 23 cc _ _ 23 predict predict VERB VB VerbForm=Inf 20 conj _ _ 24 what what PRON WP PronType=Int 28 obj _ _ 25 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 26 det _ _ 26 sky sky NOUN NN Number=Sing 28 nsubj _ _ 27 would would AUX MD VerbForm=Fin 28 aux _ _ 28 do do VERB VB VerbForm=Inf 23 ccomp _ _ 29 . . 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 | **watch** | past | Mesopotamian priests | the stars and the moon | | | | | vn assessment-34.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent star=Theme | | 2 | **keep** | past | Mesopotamian priests *not said here* | records of priests | | | century | | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent record=Theme | | 3 | **help** | past | centuries | priests *= priest* | | | | | vn help-72.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent they=Beneficiary clause=Theme | | 4 | **make** | infinitive | priests *= priest* *not said here* | calendars | | | | | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset calendar=Product | | 5 | **predict** | infinitive | priests *= priest* *not said here* | | | | | | vn indicate-78 «NP V how S»: agent=Pivot clause=Topic | | 6 | **do** | would | the sky | | | | | | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent what=Eventuality | | 7 | **record** | | | priests *= priest* | | | | | nom record «communication transitive»: of=patient | 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:004-mesopotamia-wheels-laws-and-empires.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/). - ← previous: [Mesopotamia: wheels, laws and empires, 13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/4-mesopotamia-wheels-laws-and-empires/13/) - next →: [Mesopotamia: wheels, laws and empires, 15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/4-mesopotamia-wheels-laws-and-empires/15/) - ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/4-mesopotamia-wheels-laws-and-empires/)