---
title: Maltese leaders gave the main island to Alexander Ball, asking that… — Malta · tree and pragmatics
description: Maltese leaders gave the main island to Alexander Ball, asking that the island become a British Dominion. Who acts: Maltese leaders, island. A sentence of Wikipedia's «Malta» with its dependency tree and pragmatics.
---

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# Malta, sentence 104

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From Wikipedia, [«Malta»](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malta), 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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Maltese leaders gave the main island to Alexander Ball, asking that the island become a British Dominion.

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**Who acts:** Maltese leaders, island · **What happens:** give, ask, become · **To what, where:** main island, Alexander Ball · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of the English Wikipedia article «Malta». The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Maltese leaders, island), 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:Malta:104
# text = Maltese leaders gave the main island to Alexander Ball, asking that the island become a British Dominion.
1	Maltese	maltese	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	amod	_	_
2	leaders	leader	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	nsubj	_	_
3	gave	give	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	main	main	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	island	island	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
7	to	to	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	Alexander	Alexander	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	9	compound	_	_
9	Ball	Ball	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	6	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
11	asking	ask	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	3	advcl	_	_
12	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	15	mark	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	island	island	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nsubj	_	_
15	become	become	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	11	ccomp	_	_
16	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
17	British	British	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	amod	_	_
18	Dominion	Dominion	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	15	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **give** | past | Maltese leaders | the main island | Alexander Ball |  |  |  | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP PP.recipient»: agent=Agent island=Theme to ball=Recipient |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* | gerund | Maltese leaders *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **become** | present | the island |  |  |  |  | a British Dominion *xcomp* | vn become-109.1-1-1 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=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, «Malta», 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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