---
title: Belgian colonial authorities, constrained by porous borders and entr… — Kinshasa · tree and pragmatics
description: Belgian colonial authorities, constrained by porous borders and entrenched kinship networks among the Bakongo across both nations, were largely ineffectual in stemming this border-crossing migration. Who acts: Belgian colonial authorities, entrenched kinship. A sentence of Wikipedia's «Kinshasa» wit
---

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# Kinshasa, sentence 310

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From Wikipedia, [«Kinshasa»](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinshasa), 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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Belgian colonial authorities, constrained by porous borders and entrenched kinship networks among the Bakongo across both nations, were largely ineffectual in stemming this border-crossing migration.

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**Who acts:** Belgian colonial authorities, entrenched kinship · **What happens:** constrain, entrench, network, be, stem, cross · **To what, where:** nations, crossing migration

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This is a sentence of the English Wikipedia article «Kinshasa». The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Belgian colonial authorities, entrenched kinship), 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:Kinshasa:310
# text = Belgian colonial authorities, constrained by porous borders and entrenched kinship networks among the Bakongo across both nations, were largely ineffectual in stemming this border-crossing migration.
1	Belgian	Belgian	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
2	colonial	colonial	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	authorities	authority	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
5	constrained	constrain	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
6	by	by	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	porous	porous	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	borders	border	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	obl	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
10	entrenched	entrench	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	11	amod	_	_
11	kinship	kinship	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nsubj	_	_
12	networks	network	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
13	among	among	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	Bakongo	Bakongo	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	_
16	across	across	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	both	both	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	18	det	_	_
18	nations	nation	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
20	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	22	cop	_	_
21	largely	largely	ADV	RB	_	22	advmod	_	_
22	ineffectual	ineffectual	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	conj	_	_
23	in	in	SCONJ	IN	_	24	mark	_	_
24	stemming	stem	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	22	advcl	_	_
25	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	29	det	_	_
26	border	border	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	28	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	26	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	crossing	cross	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	29	amod	_	_
29	migration	migration	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	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 | **constrain** | participle | Belgian colonial authorities |  |  |  |  | by porous borders | vn limit-76 «NP V NP»: agent=Causer |
| 2 | **entrench** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **network** | present | entrenched kinship |  |  | both nations |  | among the Bakongo | vn mix-22.1-2-1 «NP V»: agent=Patient |
| 4 | **is** | past | Belgian colonial authorities *not said here* |  |  |  |  | ineffectual, largely *property* | tree rules |
| 5 | **stem** | gerund | Belgian colonial authorities *not said here* | this crossing migration |  |  |  |  | vn appear-48.1.1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location migration=Theme |
| 6 | **cross** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  | border *compound* | vn contiguous\_location-47.8-1 «NP V»: agent=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, «Kinshasa», 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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