---
title: The Phoenicians were sea-traders from cities such as Tyre, Sidon and… — How writing began: from tally marks and pictures… · tree and pragmatics
description: The Phoenicians were sea-traders from cities such as Tyre, Sidon and Byblos in today's Lebanon, famous for a costly purple dye made from sea snails; about 3,000 years ago they spread a 22-letter alphabet around the Mediterranean. Who acts: Phoenicians. A sentence of the lesson «How writing began: fr
---

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# How writing began: from tally marks and pictures to the alphabet, sentence 15

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
The Phoenicians were sea-traders from cities such as Tyre, Sidon and Byblos in today's Lebanon, famous for a costly purple dye made from sea snails; about 3,000 years ago they spread a 22-letter alphabet around the Mediterranean.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Phoenicians · **What happens:** be, make, spread · **To what, where:** sea traders, cities, costly purple dye, letter alphabet, Mediterranean

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (Phoenicians), 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:15
# text = The Phoenicians were sea-traders from cities such as Tyre, Sidon and Byblos in today's Lebanon, famous for a costly purple dye made from sea snails; about 3,000 years ago they spread a 22-letter alphabet around the Mediterranean.
# 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): R5-strong ×1, R7-rel-agree ×1
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	Phoenicians	Phoenician	PROPN	NNPS	Number=Plur	6	nsubj	_	_
3	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
4	sea	sea	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	compound	_	_
5	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	4	punct	_	_
6	traders	trader	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	0	root	_	_
7	from	from	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	cities	city	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	nmod	_	_
9	such	such	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos|ExtPos=ADP	11	case	_	_
10	as	as	ADP	IN	_	9	fixed	_	_
11	Tyre	Tyre	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	8	nmod	_	_
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
13	Sidon	Sidon	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	11	conj	_	Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=11:appos
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
15	Byblos	Byblos	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	13	conj	_	_
16	in	in	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
17	today	today	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	nmod:poss	_	_
18	's	's	PART	POS	_	17	case	_	_
19	Lebanon	Lebanon	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	11	nmod	_	_
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
21	famous	famous	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	conj	_	_
22	for	for	ADP	IN	_	26	case	_	_
23	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	26	det	_	_
24	costly	costly	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	26	amod	_	_
25	purple	purple	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	26	amod	_	_
26	dye	dye	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	obl	_	_
27	made	make	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	26	acl	_	_
28	from	from	ADP	IN	_	30	case	_	_
29	sea	sea	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	30	compound	_	_
30	snails	snail	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	27	obl	_	_
31	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	37	punct	_	_
32	about	about	ADV	RB	_	33	advmod	_	_
33	3,000	3000	NUM	CD	NumForm=Digit|NumType=Card	34	nummod	_	_
34	years	year	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	35	obl:unmarked	_	Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=37:obl:unmarked
35	ago	ago	ADV	RB	_	37	advmod	_	_
36	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	37	nsubj	_	_
37	spread	spread	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	parataxis	_	_
38	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	42	det	_	_
39	22	22	NUM	CD	NumForm=Digit|NumType=Card	41	nummod	_	_
40	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	39	punct	_	_
41	letter	letter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	42	compound	_	_
42	alphabet	alphabet	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	37	obj	_	_
43	around	around	ADP	IN	_	45	case	_	_
44	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	45	det	_	_
45	Mediterranean	Mediterranean	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	42	nmod	_	_
46	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	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 | **is a** | past | the Phoenicians | sea traders |  | cities such Tyre in today's Lebanon and Sidon and Byblos |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **make** | participle |  | a costly purple dye *not said here* |  |  |  | from sea snails | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V PP»: agent=Asset from snail=Material |
| 3 | **spread** | past | Phoenicians *= phoenician* | a letter alphabet |  | the Mediterranean |  | ago *property* | vn spray-9.7-1 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent alphabet=Theme around mediterranean=Destination |

<!-- .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:082-how-writing-began-from-tally-marks-and-pictures-to-the-alphabet.lesson:15`.

**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): R5-strong ×1, 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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