---
title: The official language of Nigeria, English, was chosen to facilitate… — Nigeria · tree and pragmatics
description: The official language of Nigeria, English, was chosen to facilitate the cultural and linguistic unity of the country, owing to the influence of British colonisation which ended in 1960. Who acts: British colonisation. A sentence of Wikipedia's «Nigeria» with its dependency tree and pragmatics.
---

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# Nigeria, sentence 548

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From Wikipedia, [«Nigeria»](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigeria), 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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The official language of Nigeria, English, was chosen to facilitate the cultural and linguistic unity of the country, owing to the influence of British colonisation which ended in 1960.

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**Who acts:** British colonisation · **What happens:** choose, facilitate, owe, end · **To what, where:** official language, cultural unity, influence, 1960

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This is a sentence of the English Wikipedia article «Nigeria». The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (British colonisation), 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:Nigeria:548
# text = The official language of Nigeria, English, was chosen to facilitate the cultural and linguistic unity of the country, owing to the influence of British colonisation which ended in 1960.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	official	official	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	language	language	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nsubj:pass	_	_
4	of	of	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	Nigeria	Nigeria	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
7	English	English	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
9	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	aux:pass	_	_
10	chosen	choose	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
11	to	to	PART	TO	_	12	mark	_	_
12	facilitate	facilitate	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	xcomp	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
14	cultural	cultural	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	amod	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
16	linguistic	linguistic	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	conj	_	_
17	unity	unity	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	_
18	of	of	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	country	country	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
22	owing	owe	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	12	advcl	_	_
23	to	to	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
24	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	25	det	_	_
25	influence	influence	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	obl	_	_
26	of	of	ADP	IN	_	28	case	_	_
27	British	British	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	28	amod	_	_
28	colonisation	colonisation	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	nmod	_	_
29	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	30	nsubj	_	_
30	ended	end	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	28	acl:relcl	_	_
31	in	in	ADP	IN	_	32	case	_	_
32	1960	1960	NUM	CD	NumForm=Digit|NumType=Card	30	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
33	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **choose** | past · passive |  | the official language of Nigeria and English |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **facilitate** | to-infinitive |  | the cultural unity of the country |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **owe** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  | to the influence of British colonisation *goal* | vn future\_having-13.3 «NP V NP PP.goal»: agent=Agent to influence=Goal |
| 4 | **end** | past | British colonisation |  |  | 1960 |  |  | vn stop-55.4-1-1 «NP.eventuality V»: agent=Eventuality |

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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, «Nigeria», 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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