--- title: Modern Chinese characters descend from Shang writing, but the script… — China: five thousand years and the oldest dynast… · tree and pragmatics description: Modern Chinese characters descend from Shang writing, but the script changed a lot, so an ordinary reader today cannot simply read an oracle bone. Who acts: Modern Chinese characters, script, ordinary reader. A sentence of the lesson «China: five thousand years and the oldest dynasties» of the histo --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/51-china-five-thousand-years-the-oldest-dynasties/13/) [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/) / [China: five thousand years and the old…](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/51-china-five-thousand-years-the-oldest-dynasties/) / 13 # China: five thousand years and the oldest dynasties, sentence 13 Modern Chinese characters descend from Shang writing, but the script changed a lot, so an ordinary reader today cannot simply read an oracle bone. **Who acts:** Modern Chinese characters, script, ordinary reader · **What happens:** descend, change, not read · **To what, where:** Shang writing, lot, oracle bone This is a sentence of the lesson «China: five thousand years and the oldest dynasties» 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 (Modern Chinese characters, script, ordinary reader), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree. ## The tree {#tree} ```conllu # sent_id = school:history:051-china-five-thousand-years-the-oldest-dynasties.lesson:13 # text = Modern Chinese characters descend from Shang writing, but the script changed a lot, so an ordinary reader today cannot simply read an oracle bone. # source = school lesson (ours) # course = history # lesson = 051-china-five-thousand-years-the-oldest-dynasties.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): R7-rel-agree ×1 1 Modern modern ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 3 amod _ _ 2 Chinese Chinese ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 3 amod _ _ 3 characters character NOUN NNS Number=Plur 4 nsubj _ _ 4 descend descend VERB VBP Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 0 root _ _ 5 from from ADP IN _ 7 case _ _ 6 Shang Shang PROPN NNP Number=Sing 7 compound _ _ 7 writing writing NOUN NN Number=Sing 4 obl _ _ 8 , , PUNCT , _ 12 punct _ _ 9 but but CCONJ CC _ 12 cc _ _ 10 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 11 det _ _ 11 script script NOUN NN Number=Sing 12 nsubj _ _ 12 changed change VERB VBD Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 4 conj _ _ 13 a a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 14 det _ _ 14 lot lot NOUN NN Number=Sing 12 obl _ Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=12:obj 15 , , PUNCT , _ 24 punct _ _ 16 so so ADV RB _ 24 advmod _ _ 17 an a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 19 det _ _ 18 ordinary ordinary ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 19 amod _ _ 19 reader reader NOUN NN Number=Sing 24 nsubj _ _ 20 today today NOUN NN Number=Sing 24 obl:unmarked _ _ 21 can can AUX MD VerbForm=Fin 24 aux _ _ 22 not not PART RB Polarity=Neg 24 advmod _ _ 23 simply simply ADV RB _ 24 advmod _ _ 24 read read VERB VB VerbForm=Inf 4 conj _ _ 25 an a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 27 det _ _ 26 oracle oracle NOUN NN Number=Sing 27 compound _ _ 27 bone bone NOUN NN Number=Sing 24 obj _ _ 28 . . PUNCT . _ 4 punct _ _ ``` ## Pragmatics {#pragmatics} No stored speech act for this sentence. | # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 1 | **descend** | present | Modern Chinese characters | | | Shang writing | | | vn meander-47.7-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme from writing=Location | | 2 | **change** | past | the script | a lot | | | | | vn dress-41.1.1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent | | 3 | **not** **read** | can | a ordinary reader | a oracle bone | | | today | simply *property* | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent bone=Topic | 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:051-china-five-thousand-years-the-oldest-dynasties.lesson:13`. **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): 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/). - ← previous: [China: five thousand years and the old…, 11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/51-china-five-thousand-years-the-oldest-dynasties/11/) - next →: [China: five thousand years and the old…, 14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/51-china-five-thousand-years-the-oldest-dynasties/14/) - ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/51-china-five-thousand-years-the-oldest-dynasties/)