---
title: But a shadow needs sunshine, so for nights and cloudy days people ma… — Clocks before clocks: sundials, water clocks, ca… · tree and pragmatics
description: But a shadow needs sunshine, so for nights and cloudy days people made water clocks: a pot with a small hole and lines inside, the water level falling past a mark each hour. Who acts: shadow, people, water level. A sentence of the lesson «Clocks before clocks: sundials, water clocks, candles and hou
---

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# Clocks before clocks: sundials, water clocks, candles and hourglasses, sentence 3

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
But a shadow needs sunshine, so for nights and cloudy days people made water clocks: a pot with a small hole and lines inside, the water level falling past a mark each hour.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** shadow, people, water level · **What happens:** need, make, fall · **To what, where:** sunshine, water clocks, mark

<!-- .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 (shadow, people, water level), 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:3
# text = But a shadow needs sunshine, so for nights and cloudy days people made water clocks: a pot with a small hole and lines inside, the water level falling past a mark each hour.
# 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): R5-strong ×1, R7-rel-agree ×1
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
2	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	shadow	shadow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	needs	need	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	sunshine	sunshine	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	_
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
7	so	so	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	_
8	for	for	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	nights	night	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	obl	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
11	cloudy	cloudy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
12	days	day	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	conj	_	_
13	people	people	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	nsubj	_	_
14	made	make	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	parataxis	_	Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=4:conj
15	water	water	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	compound	_	_
16	clocks	clock	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	obj	_	_
17	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	16	punct	_	_
18	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	pot	pot	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	appos	_	_
20	with	with	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
21	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
22	small	small	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	23	amod	_	_
23	hole	hole	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	nmod	_	_
24	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	25	cc	_	_
25	lines	line	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	23	conj	_	_
26	inside	inside	ADV	RB	_	25	advmod	_	Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=30:advmod
27	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	26	punct	_	_
28	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	30	det	_	_
29	water	water	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	30	compound	_	_
30	level	level	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	nmod	_	_
31	falling	fall	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	30	acl	_	_
32	past	past	ADP	IN	_	34	case	_	_
33	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	34	det	_	_
34	mark	mark	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	31	obl	_	_
35	each	each	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	36	det	_	_
36	hour	hour	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	31	obl:unmarked	_	_
37	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	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 | **need** | present | a shadow | sunshine |  |  |  |  | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: agent=Pivot sunshine=Theme |
| 2 | **make** | past | people | water clocks |  |  | night |  | vn build-26.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent clock=Product |
| 3 | **fall** | gerund | the water level *not said here* |  |  | a mark | hour |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme past mark=Initial\_Location |

<!-- .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:world:122-clocks-before-clocks.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): R5-strong ×1, R7-rel-agree ×1. **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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