--- title: Cowrie shells were used as money for hundreds of years in parts of A… — Writing, laws and money: how strangers learned t… · tree and pragmatics description: Cowrie shells were used as money for hundreds of years in parts of Africa, India and China; in early Mesopotamia people paid in grain or silver weighed on scales. Who acts: people. A sentence of the lesson «Writing, laws and money: how strangers learned to trust each other» of the history course of --- [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/17/) [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/) / 17 # Writing, laws and money: how strangers learned to trust each other, sentence 17 Cowrie shells were used as money for hundreds of years in parts of Africa, India and China; in early Mesopotamia people paid in grain or silver weighed on scales. **Who acts:** people · **What happens:** use, pay, weigh · **To what, where:** Cowrie shells, parts, early Mesopotamia, silver, scales 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 (people), 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:17 # text = Cowrie shells were used as money for hundreds of years in parts of Africa, India and China; in early Mesopotamia people paid in grain or silver weighed on scales. # 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): R7-rel-agree ×1 1 Cowrie cowrie NOUN NN Number=Sing 2 compound _ _ 2 shells shell NOUN NNS Number=Plur 4 nsubj:pass _ _ 3 were be AUX VBD Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 4 aux:pass _ _ 4 used use VERB VBN Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass 0 root _ _ 5 as as ADP IN _ 6 case _ _ 6 money money NOUN NN Number=Sing 4 obl _ _ 7 for for ADP IN _ 8 case _ _ 8 hundreds hundred NOUN NNS Number=Plur 4 obl _ _ 9 of of ADP IN _ 10 case _ _ 10 years year NOUN NNS Number=Plur 8 nmod _ _ 11 in in ADP IN _ 12 case _ _ 12 parts part NOUN NNS Number=Plur 4 obl _ _ 13 of of ADP IN _ 14 case _ _ 14 Africa Africa PROPN NNP Number=Sing 12 nmod _ _ 15 , , PUNCT , _ 16 punct _ _ 16 India India PROPN NNP Number=Sing 14 conj _ _ 17 and and CCONJ CC _ 18 cc _ _ 18 China China PROPN NNP Number=Sing 14 conj _ _ 19 ; ; PUNCT : _ 24 punct _ _ 20 in in ADP IN _ 22 case _ _ 21 early early ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 22 amod _ _ 22 Mesopotamia Mesopotamia PROPN NNP Number=Sing 24 obl _ _ 23 people people NOUN NNS Number=Plur 24 nsubj _ _ 24 paid pay VERB VBD Mood=Ind|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 4 parataxis _ Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=4:conj 25 in in ADP IN _ 26 case _ _ 26 grain grain NOUN NN Number=Sing 24 obl _ _ 27 or or CCONJ CC _ 28 cc _ _ 28 silver silver NOUN NN Number=Sing 26 conj _ _ 29 weighed weigh VERB VBN Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass 28 acl _ _ 30 on on ADP IN _ 31 case _ _ 31 scales scale NOUN NNS Number=Plur 29 obl _ _ 32 . . 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 | **use** | past · passive | | Cowrie shells | | parts of Africa and India and China | | as money; for hundreds of years | vn spend\_time-104 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: subject=Duration as money=Attribute | | 2 | **pay** | past | people | | | early Mesopotamia | | in grain or silver | vn pay-68-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent | | 3 | **weigh** | participle | | silver *not said here* | | scales | | | vn register-54.1-2-1 «NP V NP.value»: agent=Theme | 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:063-writing-laws-and-money-how-strangers-learned-to-trust-each-other.lesson:17`. **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: [Writing, laws and money: how strangers…, 16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/63-writing-laws-and-money-how-strangers-learned-to-trust-each-other/16/) - next →: [Writing, laws and money: how strangers…, 18](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/63-writing-laws-and-money-how-strangers-learned-to-trust-each-other/18/) - ↑ 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/)