---
title: About 3,500 years ago the ancient Egyptians used shadow clocks and s… — Clocks before clocks: sundials, water clocks, ca… · tree and pragmatics
description: About 3,500 years ago the ancient Egyptians used shadow clocks and split the day into 12 hours, one reason our clocks still show 12. Who acts: ancient Egyptians, clocks. A sentence of the lesson «Clocks before clocks: sundials, water clocks, candles and hourglasses» of the world course of Mova's pri
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/122-clocks-before-clocks/2/)

<!-- 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/) / [Clocks before clocks: sundials, water…](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/122-clocks-before-clocks/) / 2

# Clocks before clocks: sundials, water clocks, candles and hourglasses, sentence 2

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
About 3,500 years ago the ancient Egyptians used shadow clocks and split the day into 12 hours, one reason our clocks still show 12.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** ancient Egyptians, clocks · **What happens:** use, split, show · **To what, where:** shadow clocks, one reason, 12

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of the lesson «Clocks before clocks: sundials, water clocks, candles and hourglasses» 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 (ancient Egyptians, clocks), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:world:122-clocks-before-clocks.lesson:2
# text = About 3,500 years ago the ancient Egyptians used shadow clocks and split the day into 12 hours, one reason our clocks still show 12.
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = world
# lesson = 122-clocks-before-clocks.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	About	about	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	_
2	3,500	3500	NUM	CD	NumForm=Digit|NumType=Card	3	nummod	_	_
3	years	year	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obl:unmarked	_	_
4	ago	ago	ADV	RB	_	8	advmod	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
6	ancient	ancient	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	Egyptians	Egyptian	PROPN	NNPS	Number=Plur	8	nsubj	_	_
8	used	use	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	shadow	shadow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	compound	_	_
10	clocks	clock	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	obj	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
12	split	split	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	conj	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	day	day	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	_
15	into	into	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	12	12	NUM	CD	NumForm=Digit|NumType=Card	17	nummod	_	_
17	hours	hour	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	obl	_	_
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
19	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	20	nummod	_	_
20	reason	reason	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	_
21	our	our	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	22	nmod:poss	_	_
22	clocks	clock	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	24	nsubj	_	_
23	still	still	ADV	RB	_	24	advmod	_	_
24	show	show	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	20	acl:relcl	_	_
25	12	12	NUM	CD	NumForm=Digit|NumType=Card	24	obj	_	_
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .note -->
No stored speech act for this sentence.

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **use** | past | the ancient Egyptians | shadow clocks |  |  |  | ago *property* | vn eat-39.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent clock=Patient |
| 2 | **split** | past | the ancient Egyptians *not said here* | one reason |  |  | day; hour |  | vn break-45.1 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient |
| 3 | **show** | present | our clocks | 12 |  |  | still |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent 12=Recipient |

<!-- .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:122-clocks-before-clocks.lesson:2`.

**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: [Clocks before clocks: sundials, water…, 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/122-clocks-before-clocks/1/)
- next →: [Clocks before clocks: sundials, water…, 3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/122-clocks-before-clocks/3/)
- ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/122-clocks-before-clocks/)