---
title: Writing was invented separately in Mesopotamia about 5,200 years ago… — Writing, laws and money: how strangers learned t… · tree and pragmatics
description: Writing was invented separately in Mesopotamia about 5,200 years ago, in China over 3,000 years ago, and in Mexico and Central America over 2,000 years ago; whether Egypt's writing was separate is debated. Who acts: writing, Egypt. A sentence of the lesson «Writing, laws and money: how strangers lea
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/63-writing-laws-and-money-how-strangers-learned-to-trust-each-other/13/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[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/) / [Writing, laws and money: how strangers…](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/63-writing-laws-and-money-how-strangers-learned-to-trust-each-other/) / 13

# Writing, laws and money: how strangers learned to trust each other, sentence 13

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Writing was invented separately in Mesopotamia about 5,200 years ago, in China over 3,000 years ago, and in Mexico and Central America over 2,000 years ago; whether Egypt's writing was separate is debated.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** writing, Egypt · **What happens:** invent, be, debate, write · **To what, where:** Writing, Mesopotamia

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of the lesson «Writing, laws and money: how strangers learned to trust each other» 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 (writing, Egypt), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:history:063-writing-laws-and-money-how-strangers-learned-to-trust-each-other.lesson:13
# text = Writing was invented separately in Mesopotamia about 5,200 years ago, in China over 3,000 years ago, and in Mexico and Central America over 2,000 years ago; whether Egypt's writing was separate is debated.
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = history
# lesson = 063-writing-laws-and-money-how-strangers-learned-to-trust-each-other.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	Writing	writing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj:pass	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	aux:pass	_	_
3	invented	invent	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
4	separately	separately	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
5	in	in	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	Mesopotamia	Mesopotamia	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	_
7	about	about	ADV	RB	_	8	advmod	_	_
8	5,200	5,200	NUM	CD	NumForm=Digit|NumType=Card	9	nummod	_	_
9	years	year	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	obl:unmarked	_	_
10	ago	ago	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
12	in	in	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
13	China	China	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	_
14	over	over	ADV	RB	_	15	advmod	_	_
15	3,000	3,000	NUM	CD	NumForm=Digit|NumType=Card	16	nummod	_	_
16	years	year	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	obl:unmarked	_	_
17	ago	ago	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
19	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
20	in	in	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
21	Mexico	Mexico	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	_
22	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	24	cc	_	_
23	Central	Central	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	24	compound	_	_
24	America	America	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	21	conj	_	_
25	over	over	ADV	RB	_	26	advmod	_	_
26	2,000	2,000	NUM	CD	NumForm=Digit|NumType=Card	27	nummod	_	_
27	years	year	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	28	obl:unmarked	_	_
28	ago	ago	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
29	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	37	punct	_	_
30	whether	whether	SCONJ	IN	_	35	mark	_	_
31	Egypt	Egypt	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	33	nmod:poss	_	_
32	's	's	PART	POS	_	31	case	_	_
33	writing	writing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	35	nsubj	_	_
34	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	35	cop	_	_
35	separate	separate	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	37	csubj:pass	_	_
36	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	37	aux:pass	_	_
37	debated	debate	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	3	conj	_	_
38	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- sa -->
- form: statement
- act: narrate
- voice: narrator
- polarity: neg
- teacher: kept the draft

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **invent** | past · passive |  | Writing |  | Mesopotamia |  | in China; in Mexico and Central America; ago, separately *property* | vn create-26.4-1 «NP V NP»: subject=Result |
| 2 | **is** | past | Egypt's writing |  |  |  |  | separate *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **debate** | present · passive |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn battle-36.4-1 «NP V» |
| 4 | **write** |  | Egypt |  |  |  |  |  | nom writing «act transitive»: poss=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.

<!-- div src -->

**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:063-writing-laws-and-money-how-strangers-learned-to-trust-each-other.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): 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/).

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [Writing, laws and money: how strangers…, 12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/63-writing-laws-and-money-how-strangers-learned-to-trust-each-other/12/)
- next →: [Writing, laws and money: how strangers…, 14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/63-writing-laws-and-money-how-strangers-learned-to-trust-each-other/14/)
- ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/63-writing-laws-and-money-how-strangers-learned-to-trust-each-other/)