---
title: "How long since?" asks how much time has passed from something that… — How long since? Counting back · tree and pragmatics
description: "How long since?" asks how much time has passed from something that already happened until now. Who acts: much time. A sentence of the lesson «How long since? Counting back» of the world course of Mova's primary school with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/108-how-long-since-counting-back/0/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[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/) / [World](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/) / [How long since? Counting back](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/108-how-long-since-counting-back/) / 0

# How long since? Counting back, sentence 0

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
"How long since?" asks how much time has passed from something that already happened until now.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** much time · **What happens:** ask, pass, happen · **To what, where:** something · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of the lesson «How long since? Counting back» of the world 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 (much time), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:world:108-how-long-since-counting-back.lesson:0
# text = "How long since?" asks how much time has passed from something that already happened until now.
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = world
# lesson = 108-how-long-since-counting-back.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): no change
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	_
2	How	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	3	advmod	_	_
3	long	long	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	7	obl	_	_
4	since	since	SCONJ	IN	_	3	fixed	_	_
5	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
6	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
7	asks	ask	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	9	advmod	_	_
9	much	much	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nsubj	_	_
11	has	have	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
12	passed	pass	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	7	ccomp	_	_
13	from	from	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
14	something	something	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	12	obl	_	_
15	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	17	nsubj	_	_
16	already	already	ADV	RB	_	17	advmod	_	_
17	happened	happen	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	acl:relcl	_	_
18	until	until	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
19	now	now	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	17	obl	_	_
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- sa -->
- form: statement
- act: assert
- voice: narrator
- polarity: none
- teacher: changed form=decl, act=assert, voice=narrator

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **ask** *speech: ask* | present |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **pass** | present · perfect | much time |  |  | something |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1-3 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme from something=Initial\_Location |
| 3 | **happen** | past |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**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:world:108-how-long-since-counting-back.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): no change. **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/).

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [How long until? Counting on across the…, 24](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/107-how-long-until-counting-on-across-the-hour/24/)
- next →: [How long since? Counting back, 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/108-how-long-since-counting-back/1/)
- ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/108-how-long-since-counting-back/)