---
title: Ideas travel like a football passed down a long line of players: the… — Ideas on the move: numbers, paper, letters, ches… · tree and pragmatics
description: Ideas travel like a football passed down a long line of players: the digits you write in maths came from India, were passed on by scholars writing in Arabic, and reached Europe through a merchant's son from Pisa, Fibonacci, in 1202. Who acts: Ideas, football, you, digits. A sentence of the lesson «I
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/75-ideas-on-the-move-numbers-paper-letters-chess-and-news/0/)

<!-- 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/) / [Ideas on the move: numbers, paper, let…](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/75-ideas-on-the-move-numbers-paper-letters-chess-and-news/) / 0

# Ideas on the move: numbers, paper, letters, chess and news, sentence 0

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Ideas travel like a football passed down a long line of players: the digits you write in maths came from India, were passed on by scholars writing in Arabic, and reached Europe through a merchant's son from Pisa, Fibonacci, in 1202.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Ideas, football, you, digits, scholars · **What happens:** travel, pass down, write, come, pass on, reach · **To what, where:** long line, digits, maths, India, Arabic, Europe

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of the lesson «Ideas on the move: numbers, paper, letters, chess and news» 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 (Ideas, football, you, digits), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:history:075-ideas-on-the-move-numbers-paper-letters-chess-and-news.lesson:0
# text = Ideas travel like a football passed down a long line of players: the digits you write in maths came from India, were passed on by scholars writing in Arabic, and reached Europe through a merchant's son from Pisa, Fibonacci, in 1202.
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = history
# lesson = 075-ideas-on-the-move-numbers-paper-letters-chess-and-news.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	Ideas	idea	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	nsubj	_	_
2	travel	travel	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	like	like	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	football	football	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	_
6	passed	pass	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	5	acl	_	_
7	down	down	ADP	RP	_	6	compound:prt	_	_
8	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
9	long	long	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	line	line	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	_
11	of	of	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	players	player	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	nmod	_	_
13	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	15	punct	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	digits	digit	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	20	nsubj	_	_
16	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
17	write	write	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	15	acl:relcl	_	_
18	in	in	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
19	maths	math	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	obl	_	_
20	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	_
21	from	from	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
22	India	India	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	20	obl	_	_
23	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	25	punct	_	_
24	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	25	aux:pass	_	_
25	passed	pass	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	20	conj	_	_
26	on	on	ADP	RP	_	25	compound:prt	_	_
27	by	by	ADP	IN	_	28	case	_	_
28	scholars	scholar	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	25	obl:agent	_	_
29	writing	write	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	28	acl	_	_
30	in	in	ADP	IN	_	31	case	_	_
31	Arabic	Arabic	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	29	obl	_	_
32	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	34	punct	_	_
33	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	34	cc	_	_
34	reached	reach	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	20	conj	_	_
35	Europe	Europe	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	34	obj	_	_
36	through	through	ADP	IN	_	40	case	_	_
37	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	38	det	_	_
38	merchant	merchant	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	40	nmod:poss	_	_
39	's	's	PART	POS	_	38	case	_	_
40	son	son	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	34	obl	_	_
41	from	from	ADP	IN	_	42	case	_	_
42	Pisa	Pisa	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	40	nmod	_	_
43	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	44	punct	_	_
44	Fibonacci	Fibonacci	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	40	appos	_	_
45	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	47	punct	_	_
46	in	in	ADP	IN	_	47	case	_	_
47	1202	1202	NUM	CD	NumForm=Digit|NumType=Card	34	obl	_	_
48	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	20	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **travel** | present | Ideas |  |  |  |  | like a football | vn run-51.3.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **pass down** | participle | a football *not said here* | a long line of players |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1-3 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme line=Trajectory |
| 3 | **write** | present | you | the digits *not said here* |  | maths |  |  | vn scribble-25.2-1 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent digit=Theme in math=Destination |
| 4 | **come** | past | the digits |  |  | India |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme from india=Initial\_Location |
| 5 | **pass on** | past · passive | scholars |  |  |  |  |  | vn send-11.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 6 | **write** | gerund | scholars *not said here* |  |  | Arabic |  |  | vn scribble-25.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 7 | **reach** | past | the digits *not said here* | Europe |  | 1202 |  | through a merchant's son from Pisa | vn body\_motion-49.2-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: agent=Agent europe=Theme |

<!-- .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:075-ideas-on-the-move-numbers-paper-letters-chess-and-news.lesson:0`.

**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: [Cities then and now: the biggest citie…, 16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/74-the-biggest-cities-of-every-age-and-of-today/16/)
- next →: [Ideas on the move: numbers, paper, let…, 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/75-ideas-on-the-move-numbers-paper-letters-chess-and-news/1/)
- ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/75-ideas-on-the-move-numbers-paper-letters-chess-and-news/)