--- title: In Mesopotamia (now mostly Iraq) the Sumerians began writing about 5… — How writing began: from tally marks and pictures… · tree and pragmatics description: In Mesopotamia (now mostly Iraq) the Sumerians began writing about 5,200 years ago, pressing a reed into wet clay; Egypt had hieroglyphs at about the same time. Who acts: Sumerians, Egypt. A sentence of the lesson «How writing began: from tally marks and pictures to the alphabet» of the history cour --- [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/9/) [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/) / 9 # How writing began: from tally marks and pictures to the alphabet, sentence 9 In Mesopotamia (now mostly Iraq) the Sumerians began writing about 5,200 years ago, pressing a reed into wet clay; Egypt had hieroglyphs at about the same time. **Who acts:** Sumerians, Egypt · **What happens:** begin, write, press, have · **To what, where:** Mesopotamia, reed, wet clay, hieroglyphs 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 (Sumerians, Egypt), 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:9 # text = In Mesopotamia (now mostly Iraq) the Sumerians began writing about 5,200 years ago, pressing a reed into wet clay; Egypt had hieroglyphs at about the same time. # 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): R6-punct-agree ×1, R7-rel-agree ×3 1 In in ADP IN _ 2 case _ _ 2 Mesopotamia Mesopotamia PROPN NNP Number=Sing 10 obl _ _ 3 ( ( PUNCT -LRB- _ 6 punct _ _ 4 now now ADV RB _ 6 advmod _ _ 5 mostly mostly ADV RB _ 6 advmod _ _ 6 Iraq Iraq PROPN NNP Number=Sing 2 appos _ Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=2:conj 7 ) ) PUNCT -RRB- _ 6 punct _ Agree=R6-punct-agree|Haiku=2:punct 8 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 9 det _ _ 9 Sumerians Sumerian PROPN NNPS Number=Plur 10 nsubj _ _ 10 began begin VERB VBD Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 0 root _ _ 11 writing write VERB VBG VerbForm=Ger 10 xcomp _ _ 12 about about ADP IN _ 13 case _ _ 13 5,200 5,200 NUM CD NumForm=Digit|NumType=Card 14 nummod _ _ 14 years year NOUN NNS Number=Plur 15 obl:unmarked _ _ 15 ago ago ADV RB _ 11 advmod _ _ 16 , , PUNCT , _ 17 punct _ _ 17 pressing press VERB VBG VerbForm=Ger 11 advcl _ Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=11:conj 18 a a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 19 det _ _ 19 reed reed NOUN NN Number=Sing 17 obj _ _ 20 into into ADP IN _ 22 case _ _ 21 wet wet ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 22 amod _ _ 22 clay clay NOUN NN Number=Sing 17 obl _ _ 23 ; ; PUNCT : _ 25 punct _ _ 24 Egypt Egypt PROPN NNP Number=Sing 25 nsubj _ _ 25 had have VERB VBD Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 10 parataxis _ Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=10:conj 26 hieroglyphs hieroglyph NOUN NNS Number=Plur 25 obj _ _ 27 at at ADP IN _ 31 case _ _ 28 about about ADV RB _ 31 advmod _ _ 29 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 31 det _ _ 30 same same ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 31 amod _ _ 31 time time NOUN NN Number=Sing 25 obl _ _ 32 . . PUNCT . _ 10 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 | the Sumerians | | | Mesopotamia | | | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality | | 2 | **write** | gerund | the Sumerians *not said here* | | | | | ago *property* | vn scribble-25.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent | | 3 | **press** | gerund | the Sumerians *not said here* | a reed | | wet clay | | | vn push-12-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent reed=Theme | | 4 | **have** | past | Egypt | hieroglyphs | | | time | | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent hieroglyph=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:9`. **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): R6-punct-agree ×1, R7-rel-agree ×3. **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…, 7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/82-how-writing-began-from-tally-marks-and-pictures-to-the-alphabet/7/) - next →: [How writing began: from tally marks an…, 11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/82-how-writing-began-from-tally-marks-and-pictures-to-the-alphabet/11/) - ↑ 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/)