---
title: Kombis (small vans) and taxis ply the routes within the city, while… — Gaborone · tree and pragmatics
description: Kombis (small vans) and taxis ply the routes within the city, while buses serve surrounding villages and other towns in Botswana. Who acts: Kombis, buses. A sentence of Wikipedia's «Gaborone» with its dependency tree and pragmatics.
---

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# Gaborone, sentence 296

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From Wikipedia, [«Gaborone»](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaborone), 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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Kombis (small vans) and taxis ply the routes within the city, while buses serve surrounding villages and other towns in Botswana.

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**Who acts:** Kombis, buses · **What happens:** ply, serve, surround · **To what, where:** routes, villages

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This is a sentence of the English Wikipedia article «Gaborone». The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Kombis, buses), 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:Gaborone:296
# text = Kombis (small vans) and taxis ply the routes within the city, while buses serve surrounding villages and other towns in Botswana.
1	Kombis	Kombis	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	_
2	(	(	PUNCT	-LRB-	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	small	small	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	vans	van	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	1	appos	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	)	)	PUNCT	-RRB-	_	4	punct	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
7	taxis	taxi	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	1	conj	_	_
8	ply	ply	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	routes	route	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	obj	_	_
11	within	within	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	city	city	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
15	while	while	SCONJ	IN	_	17	mark	_	_
16	buses	bus	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	nsubj	_	_
17	serve	serve	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	8	conj	_	_
18	surrounding	surround	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	17	xcomp	_	_
19	villages	village	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	18	obj	_	_
20	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
21	other	other	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	22	amod	_	_
22	towns	town	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	19	conj	_	_
23	in	in	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
24	Botswana	Botswana	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	19	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **ply** | present | Kombis and taxis | the routes |  |  |  | within the city | vn equip-13.4.2 «NP V NP-Fulfilling PP»: agent=Agent route=Recipient |
| 2 | **serve** | present | buses |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **surround** | gerund | buses *not said here* | villages and other towns |  |  |  | in Botswana | vn fill-9.8-1 «NP V NP PP.theme»: agent=Agent village=Destination in botswana=Theme |

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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, «Gaborone», 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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