---
title: Britain's speaking clock (dial 123) began in 1936, and the BBC's six… — Pendulums, Greenwich and railway time, atomic cl… · tree and pragmatics
description: Britain's speaking clock (dial 123) began in 1936, and the BBC's six "pips" have marked the hour since 1924; the last pip marks the exact start of the hour. Who acts: speaking clock, six pips, last pip. A sentence of the lesson «Pendulums, Greenwich and railway time, atomic clocks and phones» of the
---

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# Pendulums, Greenwich and railway time, atomic clocks and phones, sentence 24

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Britain's speaking clock (dial 123) began in 1936, and the BBC's six "pips" have marked the hour since 1924; the last pip marks the exact start of the hour.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** speaking clock, six pips, last pip · **What happens:** dial, begin, mark, start · **To what, where:** 123, 1936, exact start, hour

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of the lesson «Pendulums, Greenwich and railway time, atomic clocks and phones» 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 (speaking clock, six pips, last pip), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:world:123-pendulums-greenwich-atomic-clocks.lesson:24
# text = Britain's speaking clock (dial 123) began in 1936, and the BBC's six "pips" have marked the hour since 1924; the last pip marks the exact start of the hour.
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = world
# lesson = 123-pendulums-greenwich-atomic-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): R7-rel-agree ×2
1	Britain	Britain	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	4	nmod:poss	_	_
2	's	's	PART	POS	_	1	case	_	_
3	speaking	speaking	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	compound	_	_
4	clock	clock	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	_
5	(	(	PUNCT	-LRB-	_	6	punct	_	_
6	dial	dial	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	4	appos	_	Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=4:parataxis
7	123	123	NUM	CD	NumForm=Digit|NumType=Card	6	obj	_	_
8	)	)	PUNCT	-RRB-	_	6	punct	_	_
9	began	begin	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
10	in	in	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
11	1936	1936	NUM	CD	NumForm=Digit|NumType=Card	9	obl	_	_
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	BBC	BBC	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	19	nmod:poss	_	_
16	's	's	PART	POS	_	15	case	_	_
17	six	six	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	19	nummod	_	_
18	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	19	punct	_	_
19	pips	pip	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	22	nsubj	_	_
20	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	19	punct	_	_
21	have	have	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	22	aux	_	_
22	marked	mark	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	9	conj	_	_
23	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
24	hour	hour	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	obj	_	_
25	since	since	ADP	IN	_	26	case	_	_
26	1924	1924	NUM	CD	NumForm=Digit|NumType=Card	22	obl	_	_
27	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	31	punct	_	_
28	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	30	det	_	_
29	last	last	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	30	amod	_	_
30	pip	pip	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	31	nsubj	_	_
31	marks	mark	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	9	parataxis	_	Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=9:conj
32	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	34	det	_	_
33	exact	exact	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	34	amod	_	_
34	start	start	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	31	obj	_	_
35	of	of	ADP	IN	_	37	case	_	_
36	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	37	det	_	_
37	hour	hour	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	34	nmod	_	_
38	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **dial** | infinitive |  | 123 |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **begin** | past | Britain's speaking clock |  |  | 1936 |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP.eventuality V»: agent=Eventuality |
| 3 | **mark** | present · perfect | the BBC's six pips |  |  |  | since 1924; hour |  | vn image\_impression-25.1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **mark** | present | the last pip | the exact start of the hour |  |  |  |  | vn image\_impression-25.1 «NP V NP.destination»: agent=Agent start=Destination |
| 5 | **start** |  |  | the hour |  |  |  |  | nom start «event 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:123-pendulums-greenwich-atomic-clocks.lesson:24`.

**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): R7-rel-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/).

<!-- /div -->

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