---
title: Those years were like a playground where five bigger kids fight over… — The struggle of 1917–21 and the Holodomor · tree and pragmatics
description: Those years were like a playground where five bigger kids fight over one ball at once: Bolsheviks, White Russian armies, Ukrainian governments, Polish troops and peasant armies like Nestor Makhno's all fought over the land (the Bolsheviks were Lenin's Communists, who had taken power in Russia), and 
---

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# The struggle of 1917–21 and the Holodomor, sentence 1

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Those years were like a playground where five bigger kids fight over one ball at once: Bolsheviks, White Russian armies, Ukrainian governments, Polish troops and peasant armies like Nestor Makhno's all fought over the land (the Bolsheviks were Lenin's Communists, who had taken power in Russia), and in the end most of Ukraine became a Soviet republic.

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**Who acts:** years, five bigger kids, Bolsheviks, Communists, most · **What happens:** be, fight, take, become · **To what, where:** Communists, power, Russia, Soviet republic, end

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This is a sentence of the lesson «The struggle of 1917–21 and the Holodomor» 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 (years, five bigger kids, Bolsheviks, Communists), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:history:046-the-struggle-of-1917-21-and-the-holodomor.lesson:1
# text = Those years were like a playground where five bigger kids fight over one ball at once: Bolsheviks, White Russian armies, Ukrainian governments, Polish troops and peasant armies like Nestor Makhno's all fought over the land (the Bolsheviks were Lenin's Communists, who had taken power in Russia), and in the end most of Ukraine became a Soviet republic.
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = history
# lesson = 046-the-struggle-of-1917-21-and-the-holodomor.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): R6-punct-agree ×1, R8-pos-agree ×1
1	Those	that	DET	DT	Number=Plur|PronType=Dem	2	det	_	_
2	years	year	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	nsubj	_	_
3	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
4	like	like	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	playground	playground	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
7	where	where	ADV	WRB	PronType=Rel	11	advmod	_	_
8	five	five	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	10	nummod	_	_
9	bigger	big	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	10	amod	_	_
10	kids	kid	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	nsubj	_	_
11	fight	fight	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	acl:relcl	_	_
12	over	over	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	14	nummod	_	_
14	ball	ball	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	_
15	at	at	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
16	once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	11	obl	_	_
17	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	18	punct	_	_
18	Bolsheviks	bolshevik	PROPN	NNPS	Number=Plur	37	nsubj	_	Agree=R8-pos-agree|Haiku=37:nsubj|HaikuPos=NOUN:NNS:Number=Plur
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
20	White	white	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	22	amod	_	_
21	Russian	Russian	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	22	amod	_	_
22	armies	army	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	18	conj	_	_
23	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	25	punct	_	_
24	Ukrainian	ukrainian	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	25	amod	_	_
25	governments	government	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	18	conj	_	_
26	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	28	punct	_	_
27	Polish	polish	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	28	amod	_	_
28	troops	troops	NOUN	NNS	Number=Ptan	18	conj	_	_
29	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	31	cc	_	_
30	peasant	peasant	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	31	amod	_	_
31	armies	army	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	18	conj	_	_
32	like	like	ADP	IN	_	34	case	_	_
33	Nestor	nestor	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	34	compound	_	_
34	Makhno	Makhno	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	18	nmod	_	_
35	's	's	PART	POS	_	34	case	_	_
36	all	all	ADV	RB	_	37	advmod	_	_
37	fought	fight	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	parataxis	_	_
38	over	over	ADP	IN	_	40	case	_	_
39	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	40	det	_	_
40	land	land	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	37	obl	_	_
41	(	(	PUNCT	-LRB-	_	43	punct	_	_
42	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	43	det	_	_
43	Bolsheviks	bolshevik	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	40	appos	_	_
44	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	47	cop	_	_
45	Lenin	Lenin	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	47	nmod:poss	_	_
46	's	's	PART	POS	_	45	case	_	_
47	Communists	Communist	PROPN	NNPS	Number=Plur	43	nmod	_	_
48	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	51	punct	_	_
49	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	51	nsubj	_	_
50	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	51	aux	_	_
51	taken	take	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	47	acl:relcl	_	_
52	power	power	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	51	obj	_	_
53	in	in	ADP	IN	_	54	case	_	_
54	Russia	Russia	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	51	obl	_	_
55	)	)	PUNCT	-RRB-	_	47	punct	_	Agree=R6-punct-agree|Haiku=43:punct
56	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	64	punct	_	_
57	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	64	cc	_	_
58	in	in	ADP	IN	_	60	case	_	_
59	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	60	det	_	_
60	end	end	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	64	obl	_	_
61	most	most	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	64	nsubj	_	_
62	of	of	ADP	IN	_	63	case	_	_
63	Ukraine	Ukraine	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	61	nmod	_	_
64	became	become	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	37	conj	_	_
65	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	67	det	_	_
66	Soviet	Soviet	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	67	compound	_	_
67	republic	republic	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	64	xcomp	_	_
68	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	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 | **is** | past | that years |  |  |  |  | like a playground | tree rules |
| 2 | **fight** | present | five bigger kids |  |  |  |  | over one ball | vn battle-36.4-1 «NP V PP.theme NP S\_ING»: agent=Agent over ball=Theme |
| 3 | **fight** | past | Bolsheviks like Nestor Makhno and White Russian armies and Ukrainian governments and Polish troops and peasant armies |  |  |  |  | over the land; all *property* | vn battle-36.4-1 «NP V PP.theme NP S\_ING»: agent=Agent over land=Theme |
| 4 | **is a** | past |  | Lenin's Communists |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 5 | **take** | past · perfect | Lenin's Communists | power |  | Russia |  |  | vn fit-54.3 «NP V NP PP.location»: agent=Agent power=Value in russia=Location |
| 6 | **become** | past | most of Ukraine | a Soviet republic |  |  | in the end |  | vn become-109.1-1-1 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Patient in end=Result |

<!-- .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:046-the-struggle-of-1917-21-and-the-holodomor.lesson:1`.

**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): R6-punct-agree ×1, R8-pos-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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