--- title: The Greeks borrowed the alphabet about 2,800 years ago and added vow… — How writing began: from tally marks and pictures… · tree and pragmatics description: The Greeks borrowed the alphabet about 2,800 years ago and added vowels; the word «alphabet» comes from their first two letters, alpha and beta. Who acts: Greeks, word, vowels. A sentence of the lesson «How writing began: from tally marks and pictures to the alphabet» of the history course of Mova's --- [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/17/) [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/) / 17 # How writing began: from tally marks and pictures to the alphabet, sentence 17 The Greeks borrowed the alphabet about 2,800 years ago and added vowels; the word «alphabet» comes from their first two letters, alpha and beta. **Who acts:** Greeks, word, vowels · **What happens:** borrow, add, come, letter · **To what, where:** alphabet, vowels, first two 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 (Greeks, word, vowels), 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:17 # text = The Greeks borrowed the alphabet about 2,800 years ago and added vowels; the word «alphabet» comes from their first two letters, alpha and beta. # 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, R6-punct-agree ×1, R8-pos-agree ×1 1 The the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 2 det _ _ 2 Greeks Greek PROPN NNPS Number=Plur 3 nsubj _ Agree=R8-pos-agree|Haiku=3:nsubj|HaikuPos=NOUN:NNS:Number=Plur 3 borrowed borrow VERB VBD Mood=Ind|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 0 root _ _ 4 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 5 det _ _ 5 alphabet alphabet NOUN NN Number=Sing 3 obj _ _ 6 about about ADV RB _ 7 advmod _ Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=8:case|HaikuPos=ADP:IN:_ 7 2,800 2,800 NUM CD NumForm=Digit|NumType=Card 8 nummod _ _ 8 years year NOUN NNS Number=Plur 9 obl:unmarked _ _ 9 ago ago ADV RB _ 3 advmod _ _ 10 and and CCONJ CC _ 11 cc _ _ 11 added add VERB VBD Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 3 conj _ _ 12 vowels vowel NOUN NNS Number=Plur 11 obj _ _ 13 ; ; PUNCT , _ 15 punct _ _ 14 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 15 det _ _ 15 word word NOUN NN Number=Sing 19 nsubj _ _ 16 « « PUNCT `` _ 17 punct _ _ 17 alphabet alphabet NOUN NN Number=Sing 15 appos _ _ 18 » » PUNCT '' _ 17 punct _ _ 19 comes come VERB VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 3 conj _ _ 20 from from ADP IN _ 24 case _ _ 21 their their PRON PRP$ Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs 24 nmod:poss _ _ 22 first first ADJ JJ Degree=Pos|NumForm=Word|NumType=Ord 24 amod _ _ 23 two two NUM CD NumForm=Word|NumType=Card 24 nummod _ _ 24 letters letter NOUN NNS Number=Plur 19 obl _ _ 25 , , PUNCT , _ 26 punct _ _ 26 alpha alpha NOUN NN Number=Sing 24 appos _ _ 27 and and CCONJ CC _ 28 cc _ _ 28 beta beta NOUN NN Number=Sing 26 conj _ _ 29 . . PUNCT . _ 3 punct _ Agree=R6-punct-agree|Haiku=2:punct ``` ## Pragmatics {#pragmatics} - form: statement - act: assert - voice: narrator - polarity: none - teacher: kept the draft | # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 1 | **borrow** | past | the Greeks | the alphabet | | | | ago *property* | vn obtain-13.5.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent alphabet=Theme | | 2 | **add** *speech: assert* | past | the Greeks *not said here* | vowels | | | | | vn mix-22.1-2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent vowel=Patient | | 3 | **come** | present | the word | | | vowels's first two letters | | | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme from letter=Initial\_Location | | 4 | **letter** | | vowels *= vowel* | | | | | | nom letter «communication transitive»: poss=agent | 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:17`. **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, R6-punct-agree ×1, R8-pos-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/). - ← previous: [How writing began: from tally marks an…, 16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/82-how-writing-began-from-tally-marks-and-pictures-to-the-alphabet/16/) - next →: [How writing began: from tally marks an…, 18](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/82-how-writing-began-from-tally-marks-and-pictures-to-the-alphabet/18/) - ↑ 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/)