---
title: Over the past century, ethnic distinctions have diminished to the po… — Malawi · tree and pragmatics
description: Over the past century, ethnic distinctions have diminished to the point where there is no significant inter-ethnic friction, although regional divisions still occur. Who acts: ethnic distinctions, significant ethnic friction, regional divisions. A sentence of Wikipedia's «Malawi» with its dependency
---

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# Malawi, sentence 277

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From Wikipedia, [«Malawi»](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malawi), 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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Over the past century, ethnic distinctions have diminished to the point where there is no significant inter-ethnic friction, although regional divisions still occur.

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**Who acts:** ethnic distinctions, significant ethnic friction, regional divisions · **What happens:** diminish, be, occur

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This is a sentence of the English Wikipedia article «Malawi». The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (ethnic distinctions, significant ethnic friction, regional divisions), 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:Malawi:277
# text = Over the past century, ethnic distinctions have diminished to the point where there is no significant inter-ethnic friction, although regional divisions still occur.
1	Over	over	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
3	past	past	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	century	century	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
6	ethnic	ethnic	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	distinctions	distinction	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	nsubj	_	_
8	have	have	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	_
9	diminished	diminish	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
10	to	to	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	point	point	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	_
13	where	where	ADV	WRB	PronType=Rel	15	advmod	_	_
14	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	15	expl	_	_
15	is	be	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	12	acl:relcl	_	_
16	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	21	det	_	_
17	significant	significant	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	21	amod	_	_
18	inter	inter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	18	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	ethnic	ethnic	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	21	amod	_	_
21	friction	friction	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	27	punct	_	_
23	although	although	SCONJ	IN	_	27	mark	_	_
24	regional	regional	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	25	amod	_	_
25	divisions	division	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	27	nsubj	_	_
26	still	still	ADV	RB	_	27	advmod	_	_
27	occur	occur	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	9	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **diminish** | present · perfect | ethnic distinctions |  |  |  | century | to the point | vn caused\_calibratable\_cos-45.6.2-1 «NP V ADV-Middle»: agent=Patient |
| 2 | **be** | present | no significant ethnic friction |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **occur** | present | regional divisions |  |  |  | still |  | vn occur-48.3-1 «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, «Malawi», 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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