--- title: True writing began about 5,200 years ago in Mesopotamia and Egypt, w… — How writing began: from tally marks and pictures… · tree and pragmatics description: True writing began about 5,200 years ago in Mesopotamia and Egypt, when temple workers and traders needed to remember how much grain, beer and how many sheep they had. Who acts: True writing, temple workers, workers. A sentence of the lesson «How writing began: from tally marks and pictures to the a --- [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/3/) [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/) / 3 # How writing began: from tally marks and pictures to the alphabet, sentence 3 True writing began about 5,200 years ago in Mesopotamia and Egypt, when temple workers and traders needed to remember how much grain, beer and how many sheep they had. **Who acts:** True writing, temple workers, workers · **What happens:** begin, need, remember, have · **To what, where:** Mesopotamia, much grain, many sheep 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 (True writing, temple workers, workers), 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:3 # text = True writing began about 5,200 years ago in Mesopotamia and Egypt, when temple workers and traders needed to remember how much grain, beer and how many sheep they had. # 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 ×3, R5-strong ×2 1 True true ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 2 amod _ _ 2 writing writing NOUN NN Number=Sing 3 nsubj _ _ 3 began begin VERB VBD Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 0 root _ _ 4 about about ADV RB _ 5 advmod _ _ 5 5,200 5,200 NUM CD NumForm=Digit|NumType=Card 6 nummod _ _ 6 years year NOUN NNS Number=Plur 7 obl:unmarked _ Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=3:obl:unmarked 7 ago ago ADV RB _ 3 advmod _ Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=6:advmod 8 in in ADP IN _ 9 case _ _ 9 Mesopotamia Mesopotamia PROPN NNP Number=Sing 3 obl _ _ 10 and and CCONJ CC _ 11 cc _ Agree=R1-cc-next|Haiku=9:cc 11 Egypt Egypt PROPN NNP Number=Sing 9 conj _ _ 12 , , PUNCT , _ 18 punct _ _ 13 when when SCONJ WRB _ 18 mark _ _ 14 temple temple NOUN NN Number=Sing 15 compound _ _ 15 workers worker NOUN NNS Number=Plur 18 nsubj _ _ 16 and and CCONJ CC _ 17 cc _ Agree=R1-cc-next|Haiku=15:cc 17 traders trader NOUN NNS Number=Plur 15 conj _ _ 18 needed need VERB VBD Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 3 advcl _ _ 19 to to PART TO _ 20 mark _ _ 20 remember remember VERB VB VerbForm=Inf 18 xcomp _ _ 21 how how ADV WRB PronType=Int 22 advmod _ _ 22 much much ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 23 amod _ _ 23 grain grain NOUN NN Number=Sing 20 obj _ _ 24 , , PUNCT , _ 25 punct _ _ 25 beer beer NOUN NN Number=Sing 23 conj _ _ 26 and and CCONJ CC _ 29 cc _ Agree=R1-cc-next|Haiku=23:cc 27 how how ADV WRB PronType=Int 28 advmod _ _ 28 many many ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 29 amod _ _ 29 sheep sheep NOUN NNS Number=Plur 23 conj _ _ 30 they they PRON PRP Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs 31 nsubj _ _ 31 had have VERB VBD Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 29 acl:relcl _ _ 32 . . PUNCT . _ 3 punct _ _ ``` ## Pragmatics {#pragmatics} No stored speech act for this sentence. | # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 1 | **begin** | past | True writing | | | Mesopotamia and Egypt | | ago *property* | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP.eventuality V»: agent=Eventuality | | 2 | **need** | past | temple workers and traders | | | | | | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Pivot clause=Theme | | 3 | **remember** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | temple workers and traders *not said here* | much grain and beer and many sheep | | | | | vn characterize-29.2-1-1 «NP V NP S\_ING»: agent=Agent grain=Theme | | 4 | **have** | past | workers *= worker* | many sheep *not said here* | | | | | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent sheep=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:3`. **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 ×3, R5-strong ×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…, 2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/82-how-writing-began-from-tally-marks-and-pictures-to-the-alphabet/2/) - next →: [How writing began: from tally marks an…, 5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/82-how-writing-began-from-tally-marks-and-pictures-to-the-alphabet/5/) - ↑ 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/)