--- title: The Romans took the alphabet from the Greeks and the Etruscans; Engl… — How writing began: from tally marks and pictures… · tree and pragmatics description: The Romans took the alphabet from the Greeks and the Etruscans; English uses their Latin alphabet, and the Cyrillic alphabet of Ukrainian grew from the Greek one about 1,100 years ago. Who acts: Romans, English, Cyrillic alphabet. A sentence of the lesson «How writing began: from tally marks and pic --- [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/18/) [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/) / 18 # How writing began: from tally marks and pictures to the alphabet, sentence 18 The Romans took the alphabet from the Greeks and the Etruscans; English uses their Latin alphabet, and the Cyrillic alphabet of Ukrainian grew from the Greek one about 1,100 years ago. **Who acts:** Romans, English, Cyrillic alphabet · **What happens:** take, use, grow · **To what, where:** alphabet, Greeks, Latin alphabet 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 (Romans, English, Cyrillic alphabet), 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:18 # text = The Romans took the alphabet from the Greeks and the Etruscans; English uses their Latin alphabet, and the Cyrillic alphabet of Ukrainian grew from the Greek one about 1,100 years ago. # 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 ×3, R7-rel-agree ×1, R8-pos-agree ×2 1 The the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 2 det _ _ 2 Romans Roman PROPN NNPS Number=Plur 3 nsubj _ Agree=R8-pos-agree|Haiku=3:nsubj|HaikuPos=NOUN:NNS:Number=Plur 3 took take VERB VBD Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|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 from from ADP IN _ 8 case _ _ 7 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 8 det _ _ 8 Greeks Greek PROPN NNPS Number=Plur 3 obl _ Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=5:nmod|HaikuPos=NOUN:NNS:Number=Plur 9 and and CCONJ CC _ 11 cc _ _ 10 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 11 det _ _ 11 Etruscans Etruscan PROPN NNPS Number=Plur 8 conj _ Agree=R8-pos-agree|Haiku=8:conj|HaikuPos=NOUN:NNS:Number=Plur 12 ; ; PUNCT : _ 14 punct _ _ 13 English English PROPN NNP Number=Sing 14 nsubj _ _ 14 uses use VERB VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 3 parataxis _ Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=3:conj 15 their their PRON PRP$ Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs 17 nmod:poss _ _ 16 Latin Latin ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 17 amod _ _ 17 alphabet alphabet NOUN NN Number=Sing 14 obj _ _ 18 , , PUNCT , _ 25 punct _ _ 19 and and CCONJ CC _ 25 cc _ _ 20 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 22 det _ _ 21 Cyrillic cyrillic ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 22 amod _ _ 22 alphabet alphabet NOUN NN Number=Sing 25 nsubj _ _ 23 of of ADP IN _ 24 case _ _ 24 Ukrainian Ukrainian PROPN NNP Number=Sing 22 nmod _ _ 25 grew grow VERB VBD Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 3 conj _ _ 26 from from ADP IN _ 29 case _ _ 27 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 29 det _ _ 28 Greek Greek ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 29 amod _ _ 29 one one NOUN NN Number=Sing 25 obl _ _ 30 about about ADV RB _ 31 advmod _ _ 31 1,100 1,100 NUM CD NumForm=Digit|NumType=Card 32 nummod _ _ 32 years year NOUN NNS Number=Plur 33 obl:unmarked _ Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=25:obl:unmarked 33 ago ago ADV RB _ 25 advmod _ Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=32:advmod 34 . . PUNCT . _ 3 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 | **take** | past | the Romans | the alphabet | | the Greeks and the Etruscans | | | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP PP.initial\_location»: agent=Agent alphabet=Theme from greek=Initial\_Location | | 2 | **use** | present | English | Greeks's Latin alphabet | | | | | vn eat-39.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent alphabet=Patient | | 3 | **grow** | past | the Cyrillic alphabet of Ukrainian | | | | | from the Greek one; ago *property* | vn grow-26.2.1 «NP.product V PP.patient»: agent=Product from one=Patient | 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:18`. **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 ×3, R7-rel-agree ×1, R8-pos-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…, 17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/82-how-writing-began-from-tally-marks-and-pictures-to-the-alphabet/17/) - next →: [How writing began: from tally marks an…, 20](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/82-how-writing-began-from-tally-marks-and-pictures-to-the-alphabet/20/) - ↑ 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/)