---
title: The historian Sima Qian wrote that the emperor's tomb has rivers of… — China: the First Emperor, the Terracotta Army an… · tree and pragmatics
description: The historian Sima Qian wrote that the emperor's tomb has rivers of mercury, a poisonous liquid metal; soil tests show high mercury levels, and archaeologists have not opened the main tomb, mainly to protect it. Who acts: historian, tomb, soil tests, archaeologists. A sentence of the lesson «China: 
---

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# China: the First Emperor, the Terracotta Army and the Great Wall, sentence 12

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The historian Sima Qian wrote that the emperor's tomb has rivers of mercury, a poisonous liquid metal; soil tests show high mercury levels, and archaeologists have not opened the main tomb, mainly to protect it.

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**Who acts:** historian, tomb, soil tests, archaeologists · **What happens:** write, have, show, not open, protect · **To what, where:** rivers, high mercury levels, main tomb, historian

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of the lesson «China: the First Emperor, the Terracotta Army and the Great Wall» 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 (historian, tomb, soil tests, archaeologists), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:history:052-china-the-first-emperor-the-terracotta-army-and-the-great-wall.lesson:12
# text = The historian Sima Qian wrote that the emperor's tomb has rivers of mercury, a poisonous liquid metal; soil tests show high mercury levels, and archaeologists have not opened the main tomb, mainly to protect it.
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = history
# lesson = 052-china-the-first-emperor-the-terracotta-army-and-the-great-wall.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	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	historian	historian	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
3	Sima	Sima	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	2	appos	_	_
4	Qian	Qian	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	flat	_	_
5	wrote	write	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	11	mark	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	emperor	emperor	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nmod:poss	_	_
9	's	's	PART	POS	_	8	case	_	_
10	tomb	tomb	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	_
11	has	have	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	ccomp	_	_
12	rivers	river	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	obj	_	_
13	of	of	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
14	mercury	mercury	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nmod	_	_
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
16	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
17	poisonous	poisonous	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	amod	_	_
18	liquid	liquid	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	amod	_	_
19	metal	metal	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	appos	_	_
20	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
21	soil	soil	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	compound	_	_
22	tests	test	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	23	nsubj	_	_
23	show	show	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	parataxis	_	_
24	high	high	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	26	amod	_	_
25	mercury	mercury	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	26	compound	_	_
26	levels	level	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	23	obj	_	_
27	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	32	punct	_	_
28	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	32	cc	_	_
29	archaeologists	archaeologist	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	32	nsubj	_	_
30	have	have	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	32	aux	_	_
31	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	32	advmod	_	_
32	opened	open	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	23	conj	_	_
33	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	35	det	_	_
34	main	main	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	35	amod	_	_
35	tomb	tomb	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	32	obj	_	_
36	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	39	punct	_	_
37	mainly	mainly	ADV	RB	_	39	advmod	_	_
38	to	to	PART	TO	_	39	mark	_	_
39	protect	protect	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	32	advcl	_	_
40	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	39	obj	_	_
41	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- sa -->
- form: statement
- act: narrate
- voice: narrator
- polarity: none
- teacher: kept the draft

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **write** | past | the historian |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **have** | present | the emperor's tomb | rivers of mercury |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent river=Patient |
| 3 | **show** | present | soil tests | high mercury levels |  |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent level=Recipient |
| 4 | **not** **open** | present · perfect | archaeologists | the main tomb |  |  |  |  | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location tomb=Theme |
| 5 | **protect** | to-infinitive | archaeologists *not said here* | historian |  |  |  | mainly *property* | vn defend-72.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Beneficiary |

<!-- .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:052-china-the-first-emperor-the-terracotta-army-and-the-great-wall.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): 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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