---
title: Literary tradition is passed mainly by word of mouth, with jalis rec… — Mali · tree and pragmatics
description: Literary tradition is passed mainly by word of mouth, with jalis reciting or singing histories and stories known by heart. Who acts: word, jalis. A sentence of Wikipedia's «Mali» with its dependency tree and pragmatics.
---

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# Mali, sentence 465

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From Wikipedia, [«Mali»](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mali), 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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Literary tradition is passed mainly by word of mouth, with jalis reciting or singing histories and stories known by heart.

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**Who acts:** word, jalis · **What happens:** pass, recite, sing, know, word · **To what, where:** Literary tradition, histories, mouth

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This is a sentence of the English Wikipedia article «Mali». The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (word, jalis), 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:Mali:465
# text = Literary tradition is passed mainly by word of mouth, with jalis reciting or singing histories and stories known by heart.
1	Literary	literary	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	amod	_	_
2	tradition	tradition	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj:pass	_	_
3	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux:pass	_	_
4	passed	pass	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
5	mainly	mainly	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
6	by	by	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	word	word	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	_
8	of	of	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	mouth	mouth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
11	with	with	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	jalis	jali	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	parataxis	_	_
13	reciting	recite	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	12	acl	_	_
14	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
15	singing	sing	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	13	conj	_	_
16	histories	history	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	15	obj	_	_
17	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
18	stories	story	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	conj	_	_
19	known	know	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	16	acl	_	_
20	by	by	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
21	heart	heart	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **pass** | present · passive | word of mouth | Literary tradition |  |  |  | jalis *parataxis*; mainly *property* | vn escape-51.1-1-3 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme subject=Trajectory |
| 2 | **recite** | gerund | jalis *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn performance-26.7-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **sing** *speech: express* | gerund | jalis *not said here* | histories and stories |  |  |  |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location history=Theme |
| 4 | **know** | participle |  | histories and stories *not said here* |  |  |  | by heart | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |
| 5 | **word** |  |  | mouth |  |  |  |  | nom word «communication 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, «Mali», 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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