---
title: The first writers in Egypt and Mesopotamia used it to write names an… — How writing began: from tally marks and pictures… · tree and pragmatics
description: The first writers in Egypt and Mesopotamia used it to write names and words that cannot be drawn. Who acts: first writers. A sentence of the lesson «How writing began: from tally marks and pictures to the alphabet» of the history course of Mova's primary school with its dependency tree and the pragm
---

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# How writing began: from tally marks and pictures to the alphabet, sentence 12

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The first writers in Egypt and Mesopotamia used it to write names and words that cannot be drawn.

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**Who acts:** first writers · **What happens:** use, write, not draw · **To what, where:** belief, names

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This is a sentence of the lesson «How writing began: from tally marks and pictures to the alphabet» 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 (first writers), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:history:082-how-writing-began-from-tally-marks-and-pictures-to-the-alphabet.lesson:12
# text = The first writers in Egypt and Mesopotamia used it to write names and words that cannot be drawn.
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = history
# lesson = 082-how-writing-began-from-tally-marks-and-pictures-to-the-alphabet.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): R1-cc-next ×2, R5-strong ×1
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	first	first	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos|NumForm=Word|NumType=Ord	3	amod	_	_
3	writers	writer	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	nsubj	_	_
4	in	in	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	Egypt	Egypt	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	nmod	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	Agree=R1-cc-next|Haiku=5:cc
7	Mesopotamia	Mesopotamia	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	conj	_	_
8	used	use	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	obj	_	_
10	to	to	PART	TO	_	11	mark	_	_
11	write	write	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	advcl	_	_
12	names	name	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	obj	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	Agree=R1-cc-next|Haiku=12:cc
14	words	word	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	conj	_	_
15	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	19	nsubj:pass	_	_
16	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	19	aux	_	_
17	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	19	advmod	_	_
18	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	19	aux:pass	_	_
19	drawn	draw	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	12	acl:relcl	_	Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=14:acl:relcl
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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- form: statement
- act: assert
- voice: narrator
- polarity: none
- teacher: kept the draft

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **use** | past | the first writers in Egypt and Mesopotamia | belief |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Patient |
| 2 | **write** | to-infinitive | the first writers in Egypt and Mesopotamia *not said here* | names and words |  |  |  |  | vn scribble-25.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent name=Theme |
| 3 | **not** **draw** | can · passive |  | names and words |  |  |  |  | vn scribble-25.2-1 «NP V NP»: subject=Theme |

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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:082-how-writing-began-from-tally-marks-and-pictures-to-the-alphabet.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): R1-cc-next ×2, R5-strong ×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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