---
title: Brazzaville was founded by the French colonial empire upon an existi… — Brazzaville · tree and pragmatics
description: Brazzaville was founded by the French colonial empire upon an existing indigenous Bateke settlement called Ncuna, during the Scramble for Africa when European nations established spheres of influence on the continent. Who acts: French colonial empire, European nations. A sentence of Wikipedia's «Bra
---

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# Brazzaville, sentence 27

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From Wikipedia, [«Brazzaville»](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazzaville), revision of the 2026-09-01 dump, [CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). The trees and pragmatics of these pages, Mova's parse of that text, are CC BY-SA 4.0 too.

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Brazzaville was founded by the French colonial empire upon an existing indigenous Bateke settlement called Ncuna, during the Scramble for Africa when European nations established spheres of influence on the continent.

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**Who acts:** French colonial empire, European nations · **What happens:** found, exist, call, establish · **To what, where:** Brazzaville, existing indigenous Bateke settlement, spheres, continent · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of the English Wikipedia article «Brazzaville». The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (French colonial empire, European nations), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Mova's own parse.** This tree may be wrong. The article's note marks are left out of the parse.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = wikipedia:Brazzaville:27
# text = Brazzaville was founded by the French colonial empire upon an existing indigenous Bateke settlement called Ncuna, during the Scramble for Africa when European nations established spheres of influence on the continent.
1	Brazzaville	Brazzaville	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	nsubj:pass	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	aux:pass	_	_
3	founded	found	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
4	by	by	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
6	French	French	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
7	colonial	colonial	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	compound	_	_
8	empire	empire	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	_
9	upon	upon	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
10	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
11	existing	exist	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	14	amod	_	_
12	indigenous	indigenous	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
13	Bateke	Bateke	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	14	compound	_	_
14	settlement	settlement	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nmod	_	_
15	called	call	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	14	acl	_	_
16	Ncuna	Ncuna	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	15	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
18	during	during	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	Scramble	Scramble	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	_
21	for	for	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
22	Africa	Africa	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	20	nmod	_	_
23	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	26	advmod	_	_
24	European	European	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	25	amod	_	_
25	nations	nation	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	26	nsubj	_	_
26	established	establish	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	advcl	_	_
27	spheres	sphere	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	26	obj	_	_
28	of	of	ADP	IN	_	29	case	_	_
29	influence	influence	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	27	nmod	_	_
30	on	on	ADP	IN	_	32	case	_	_
31	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	32	det	_	_
32	continent	continent	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	26	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
33	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **found** | past · passive | the French colonial empire upon a existing indigenous Bateke settlement | Brazzaville |  |  | during the Scramble for Africa |  | vn establish-55.5-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent subject=Patient |
| 2 | **exist** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **call** | participle |  | a existing indigenous Bateke settlement *not said here* |  |  |  | Ncuna *xcomp* | vn initiate\_communication-37.4.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **establish** | past | European nations | spheres of influence |  | the continent |  |  | vn base-97.1 «NP V NP PP.source»: agent=Agent sphere=Theme on continent=Source |

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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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**Text:** the English Wikipedia, «Brazzaville», revision of the 2026-09-01 dump, CC BY-SA 4.0. **Tree:** Mova's own parse, CC BY-SA 4.0 as the text is. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the article read in order, CC BY-SA 4.0.

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