---
title: To find how many there were at the start, begin at the end and undo… — Working backwards through two steps · tree and pragmatics
description: To find how many there were at the start, begin at the end and undo each step in the opposite order. Who acts: you, many. A sentence of the lesson «Working backwards through two steps» of the lessons course of Mova's primary school with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Working backwards through two steps, sentence 0

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To find how many there were at the start, begin at the end and undo each step in the opposite order.

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**Who acts:** you, many · **What happens:** find, be, begin, undo · **To what, where:** start, end, step, opposite order · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of the lesson «Working backwards through two steps» of the lessons 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 (you, many), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:lessons:117-working-backwards.lesson:0
# text = To find how many there were at the start, begin at the end and undo each step in the opposite order.
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = lessons
# lesson = 117-working-backwards.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 ×4
1	To	to	PART	TO	_	2	mark	_	_
2	find	find	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	advcl	_	_
3	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	4	advmod	_	_
4	many	many	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	nsubj	_	Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=9:amod
5	there	there	PRON	EX	_	6	expl	_	Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=4:expl
6	were	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	ccomp	_	Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=9:cop|HaikuPos=AUX:VBD:Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin
7	at	at	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	start	start	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=2:obj
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
11	begin	begin	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
12	at	at	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	end	end	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
16	undo	undo	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	11	conj	_	_
17	each	each	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	18	det	_	_
18	step	step	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obj	_	_
19	in	in	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
21	opposite	opposite	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	22	amod	_	_
22	order	order	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl	_	_
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- sa -->
- form: statement
- act: narrate
- voice: narrator
- polarity: none
- teacher: kept the draft

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **find** | to-infinitive | you *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn declare-29.4-1-1 «NP V what S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Theme |
| 2 | **be** | past | many |  |  | the start; there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme at start=Location |
| 3 | **begin** | imperative | you *not said here* |  |  |  | at the end |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP.eventuality V»: agent=Eventuality |
| 4 | **undo** | infinitive | you *not said here* | each step |  | the opposite order |  |  | vn destroy-44 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent step=Patient |

<!-- .note -->
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.

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**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:lessons:117-working-backwards.lesson:0`.

**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 ×4. **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/).

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- ← previous: [The average of a few scores, 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/lessons/116-average/1/)
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- ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/lessons/117-working-backwards/)