---
title: In 1915, Haiti President Vilbrun Guillaume Sam sought to strengthen… — Haiti · tree and pragmatics
description: In 1915, Haiti President Vilbrun Guillaume Sam sought to strengthen his tenuous rule by a mass execution of 167 political prisoners. Who acts: Vilbrun. A sentence of Wikipedia's «Haiti» with its dependency tree and pragmatics.
---

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# Haiti, sentence 170

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From Wikipedia, [«Haiti»](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haiti), 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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In 1915, Haiti President Vilbrun Guillaume Sam sought to strengthen his tenuous rule by a mass execution of 167 political prisoners.

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**Who acts:** Vilbrun · **What happens:** seek, strengthen, rule, execute · **To what, where:** 1915, tenuous rule, 167 political prisoners

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This is a sentence of the English Wikipedia article «Haiti». The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Vilbrun), 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:Haiti:170
# text = In 1915, Haiti President Vilbrun Guillaume Sam sought to strengthen his tenuous rule by a mass execution of 167 political prisoners.
1	In	in	ADP	IN	_	2	case	_	_
2	1915	1915	NUM	CD	NumForm=Digit|NumType=Card	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
4	Haiti	Haiti	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	compound	_	_
5	President	President	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	6	nmod:desc	_	_
6	Vilbrun	Vilbrun	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	_
7	Guillaume	Guillaume	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	6	flat	_	_
8	Sam	Sam	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	6	flat	_	_
9	sought	seek	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
10	to	to	PART	TO	_	11	mark	_	_
11	strengthen	strengthen	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	xcomp	_	_
12	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	14	nmod:poss	_	_
13	tenuous	tenuous	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
14	rule	rule	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	_
15	by	by	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
16	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
17	mass	mass	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	amod	_	_
18	execution	execution	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	_
19	of	of	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
20	167	167	NUM	CD	NumForm=Digit|NumType=Card	22	nummod	_	_
21	political	political	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	22	amod	_	_
22	prisoners	prisoner	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	18	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **seek** | past | Vilbrun  Haiti President |  |  | 1915 |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **strengthen** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | Vilbrun  Haiti President *not said here* | Vilbrun's tenuous rule |  |  |  | by a mass execution of 167 political prisoners | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP V NP.patient»: agent=Agent rule=Patient |
| 3 | **rule** |  | Vilbrun |  |  |  |  |  | nom rule «cognition intransitive»: poss=agent |
| 4 | **execute** |  |  | 167 political prisoners |  |  |  |  | nom execution «act transitive»: of=patient |

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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, «Haiti», 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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