--- title: The Phoenician alphabet had letters only for consonants, not for vow… — How writing began: from tally marks and pictures… · tree and pragmatics description: The Phoenician alphabet had letters only for consonants, not for vowels; the Hebrew and Arabic scripts grew from the same family and are still often written without vowels. Who acts: Phoenician alphabet, Hebrew scripts. A sentence of the lesson «How writing began: from tally marks and pictures to th --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/82-how-writing-began-from-tally-marks-and-pictures-to-the-alphabet/16/) [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/) / [How writing began: from tally marks an…](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/82-how-writing-began-from-tally-marks-and-pictures-to-the-alphabet/) / 16 # How writing began: from tally marks and pictures to the alphabet, sentence 16 The Phoenician alphabet had letters only for consonants, not for vowels; the Hebrew and Arabic scripts grew from the same family and are still often written without vowels. **Who acts:** Phoenician alphabet, Hebrew scripts · **What happens:** have, grow, write · **To what, where:** letters 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 (Phoenician alphabet, Hebrew scripts), 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:16 # text = The Phoenician alphabet had letters only for consonants, not for vowels; the Hebrew and Arabic scripts grew from the same family and are still often written without vowels. # 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): R7-rel-agree ×2 1 The the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 3 det _ _ 2 Phoenician phoenician ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 3 amod _ Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=3:compound|HaikuPos=NOUN:NN:Number=Sing 3 alphabet alphabet NOUN NN Number=Sing 4 nsubj _ _ 4 had have VERB VBD Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 0 root _ _ 5 letters letter NOUN NNS Number=Plur 4 obj _ _ 6 only only ADV RB _ 8 advmod _ _ 7 for for ADP IN _ 8 case _ _ 8 consonants consonant NOUN NNS Number=Plur 5 nmod _ _ 9 , , PUNCT , _ 12 punct _ _ 10 not not PART RB Polarity=Neg 12 advmod _ _ 11 for for ADP IN _ 12 case _ _ 12 vowels vowel NOUN NNS Number=Plur 8 conj _ _ 13 ; ; PUNCT , _ 19 punct _ _ 14 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 18 det _ _ 15 Hebrew Hebrew PROPN NNP Number=Sing 18 compound _ _ 16 and and CCONJ CC _ 17 cc _ _ 17 Arabic Arabic PROPN NNP Number=Sing 15 conj _ _ 18 scripts script NOUN NNS Number=Plur 19 nsubj _ _ 19 grew grow VERB VBD Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 4 parataxis _ Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=4:conj 20 from from ADP IN _ 23 case _ _ 21 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 23 det _ _ 22 same same ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 23 amod _ _ 23 family family NOUN NN Number=Sing 19 obl _ _ 24 and and CCONJ CC _ 28 cc _ _ 25 are be AUX VBP Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 28 aux:pass _ _ 26 still still ADV RB _ 28 advmod _ _ 27 often often ADV RB _ 28 advmod _ _ 28 written write VERB VBN Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass 19 conj _ _ 29 without without ADP IN _ 30 case _ _ 30 vowels vowel NOUN NNS Number=Plur 28 obl _ _ 31 . . 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 | **have** | past | the Phoenician alphabet | letters | | | | for consonants and vowels | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent letter=Patient | | 2 | **grow** | past | the Hebrew scripts | | | | | from the same family | vn grow-26.2.1 «NP.product V PP.patient»: agent=Product from family=Patient | | 3 | **write** | present · passive | the Hebrew scripts *not said here* | | | | still | without vowels; often *property* | vn scribble-25.2-1 «NP V» | 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:082-how-writing-began-from-tally-marks-and-pictures-to-the-alphabet.lesson:16`. **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 ×2. **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: [How writing began: from tally marks an…, 15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/82-how-writing-began-from-tally-marks-and-pictures-to-the-alphabet/15/) - next →: [How writing began: from tally marks an…, 17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/82-how-writing-began-from-tally-marks-and-pictures-to-the-alphabet/17/) - ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/82-how-writing-began-from-tally-marks-and-pictures-to-the-alphabet/)