---
title: The Greeks called it a clepsydra, "water thief", and gave every spea… — Clocks before clocks: sundials, water clocks, ca… · tree and pragmatics
description: The Greeks called it a clepsydra, "water thief", and gave every speaker in court the same amount of water, just like a debate-club timer. Who acts: Greeks. A sentence of the lesson «Clocks before clocks: sundials, water clocks, candles and hourglasses» of the world course of Mova's primary school wi
---

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# Clocks before clocks: sundials, water clocks, candles and hourglasses, sentence 4

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
The Greeks called it a clepsydra, "water thief", and gave every speaker in court the same amount of water, just like a debate-club timer.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Greeks · **What happens:** call, give, amount · **To what, where:** clock, same amount, speaker, court, water · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .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 (Greeks), 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:4
# text = The Greeks called it a clepsydra, "water thief", and gave every speaker in court the same amount of water, just like a debate-club timer.
# 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, R8-pos-agree ×2
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	Greeks	Greek	PROPN	NNPS	Number=Plur	3	nsubj	_	Agree=R8-pos-agree|Haiku=3:nsubj|HaikuPos=NOUN:NNS:Number=Plur
3	called	call	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	obj	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	clepsydra	clepsydra	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	xcomp	_	_
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
8	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	10	punct	_	Agree=R8-pos-agree|Haiku=10:punct|HaikuPos=PUNCT:'':_
9	water	water	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	compound	_	_
10	thief	thief	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	appos	_	_
11	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	10	punct	_	_
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
14	gave	give	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
15	every	every	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	16	det	_	_
16	speaker	speaker	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obj	_	_
17	in	in	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
18	court	court	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nmod	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
20	same	same	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	21	amod	_	_
21	amount	amount	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obj	_	_
22	of	of	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
23	water	water	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	nmod	_	_
24	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	31	punct	_	_
25	just	just	ADV	RB	_	31	advmod	_	_
26	like	like	ADP	IN	_	31	case	_	_
27	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	31	det	_	_
28	debate	debate	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	30	compound	_	_
29	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	28	punct	_	_
30	club	club	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	31	compound	_	_
31	timer	timer	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=21:appos
32	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **call** | past | the Greeks | clock |  |  |  |  | vn initiate\_communication-37.4.2-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent it=Recipient |
| 2 | **give** | past | the Greeks *not said here* | the same amount of water | every speaker | court |  | like a club timer | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent speaker=Recipient amount=Theme |
| 3 | **amount** |  |  | water |  |  |  |  | nom amount «possession transitive»: of=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:world:122-clocks-before-clocks.lesson:4`.

**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, R8-pos-agree ×2. **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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