---
title: Large numbers of missionaries left the country when fighting broke o… — Central African Republic · tree and pragmatics
description: Large numbers of missionaries left the country when fighting broke out between rebel and government forces in 2002, but many of them have returned to continue their work. Who acts: Large numbers, many, missionaries. A sentence of Wikipedia's «Central African Republic» with its dependency tree and pr
---

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# Central African Republic, sentence 249

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From Wikipedia, [«Central African Republic»](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_African_Republic), 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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Large numbers of missionaries left the country when fighting broke out between rebel and government forces in 2002, but many of them have returned to continue their work.

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**Who acts:** Large numbers, many, missionaries · **What happens:** leave, fight, break out, return, continue, work · **To what, where:** country, 2002, work

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This is a sentence of the English Wikipedia article «Central African Republic». The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Large numbers, many, missionaries), 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:Central_African_Republic:249
# text = Large numbers of missionaries left the country when fighting broke out between rebel and government forces in 2002, but many of them have returned to continue their work.
1	Large	large	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	amod	_	_
2	numbers	number	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	nsubj	_	_
3	of	of	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
4	missionaries	missionary	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	nmod	_	_
5	left	leave	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	country	country	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	_
8	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	10	advmod	_	_
9	fighting	fight	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	10	nsubj	_	_
10	broke	break	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	advcl	_	_
11	out	out	ADP	RP	_	10	compound:prt	_	_
12	between	between	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
13	rebel	rebel	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obl	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
15	government	government	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	compound	_	_
16	forces	force	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	conj	_	_
17	in	in	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
18	2002	2002	NUM	CD	NumForm=Digit|NumType=Card	10	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	25	punct	_	_
20	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	25	cc	_	_
21	many	many	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	25	nsubj	_	_
22	of	of	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
23	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	nmod	_	_
24	have	have	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	25	aux	_	_
25	returned	return	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	5	conj	_	_
26	to	to	PART	TO	_	27	mark	_	_
27	continue	continue	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	25	advcl	_	_
28	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	29	nmod:poss	_	_
29	work	work	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	27	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **leave** | past | Large numbers of missionaries | the country |  |  |  |  | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent country=Theme |
| 2 | **fight** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn battle-36.4-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **break out** | past |  |  |  | 2002 |  | between rebel and government forces | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme between rebel=Location |
| 4 | **return** | present · perfect | many of missionaries |  |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 5 | **continue** | to-infinitive | many of missionaries *not said here* | missionaries's work |  |  |  |  | vn sustain-55.6 «NP V NP PP.instrument»: agent=Agent work=Theme |
| 6 | **work** |  | missionaries *= missionary* |  |  |  |  |  | nom work «act intransitive»: poss=agent |

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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, «Central African Republic», 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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