---
title: The world's biggest city has changed many times: from Mesopotamian c… — Cities then and now: the biggest cities of every… · tree and pragmatics
description: The world's biggest city has changed many times: from Mesopotamian cities like Uruk, to Rome, to Chinese cities like Chang'an, to Baghdad, to Beijing, to London from about 1825 to 1925, then to New York and later Tokyo. Who acts: biggest city. A sentence of the lesson «Cities then and now: the bigge
---

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# Cities then and now: the biggest cities of every age and of today, sentence 5

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
The world's biggest city has changed many times: from Mesopotamian cities like Uruk, to Rome, to Chinese cities like Chang'an, to Baghdad, to Beijing, to London from about 1825 to 1925, then to New York and later Tokyo.

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**Who acts:** biggest city · **What happens:** change · **To what, where:** London, Mesopotamian cities

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of the lesson «Cities then and now: the biggest cities of every age and of today» 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 (biggest city), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:history:074-the-biggest-cities-of-every-age-and-of-today.lesson:5
# text = The world's biggest city has changed many times: from Mesopotamian cities like Uruk, to Rome, to Chinese cities like Chang'an, to Baghdad, to Beijing, to London from about 1825 to 1925, then to New York and later Tokyo.
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = history
# lesson = 074-the-biggest-cities-of-every-age-and-of-today.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	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	world	world	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nmod:poss	_	_
3	's	's	PART	POS	_	2	case	_	_
4	biggest	big	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	5	amod	_	_
5	city	city	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	_
6	has	have	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
7	changed	change	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
8	many	many	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	times	time	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	obl:unmarked	_	_
10	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	13	punct	_	_
11	from	from	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	Mesopotamian	mesopotamian	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=13:compound|HaikuPos=NOUN:NN:Number=Sing
13	cities	city	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	obl	_	_
14	like	like	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	Uruk	Uruk	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	13	nmod	_	_
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
17	to	to	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
18	Rome	Rome	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	15	conj	_	_
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
20	to	to	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
21	Chinese	Chinese	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	22	amod	_	_
22	cities	city	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	obl	_	_
23	like	like	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
24	Chang'an	Chang'an	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	22	nmod	_	_
25	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	27	punct	_	_
26	to	to	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
27	Baghdad	Baghdad	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	24	conj	_	_
28	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	30	punct	_	_
29	to	to	ADP	IN	_	30	case	_	_
30	Beijing	Beijing	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	24	conj	_	_
31	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	33	punct	_	_
32	to	to	ADP	IN	_	33	case	_	_
33	London	London	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	_
34	from	from	ADP	IN	_	36	case	_	_
35	about	about	ADV	RB	_	36	advmod	_	_
36	1825	1825	NUM	CD	NumForm=Digit|NumType=Card	7	obl	_	_
37	to	to	ADP	IN	_	38	case	_	_
38	1925	1925	NUM	CD	NumForm=Digit|NumType=Card	36	nmod	_	_
39	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	43	punct	_	_
40	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	43	advmod	_	_
41	to	to	ADP	IN	_	43	case	_	_
42	New	New	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	43	flat	_	_
43	York	York	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	_
44	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	46	cc	_	_
45	later	late	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	46	advmod	_	_
46	Tokyo	Tokyo	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	43	conj	_	_
47	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- sa -->
- form: statement
- act: assert
- voice: narrator
- polarity: none
- teacher: changed polarity=none

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **change** | present · perfect | the world's biggest city |  | London | Mesopotamian cities like Uruk and Rome | time | to Chinese cities like Chang'an and Baghdad and Beijing *result*; from 1825 to 1925; to New York and Tokyo | vn turn-26.6.1-1 «NP V PP.material PP.result»: agent=Agent from city=Initial\_State to city=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:074-the-biggest-cities-of-every-age-and-of-today.lesson:5`.

**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/).

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