---
title: Disaster struck in the late 1970s — water pipes were laid to bring w… — Sanaa · tree and pragmatics
description: Disaster struck in the late 1970s — water pipes were laid to bring water into the old city, but there was no way to pipe it out, resulting in huge amounts of groundwater building up in the old city. Who acts: Disaster, way, huge amounts. A sentence of Wikipedia's «Sanaa» with its dependency tree and
---

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# Sanaa, sentence 95

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From Wikipedia, [«Sanaa»](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanaa), 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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Disaster struck in the late 1970s — water pipes were laid to bring water into the old city, but there was no way to pipe it out, resulting in huge amounts of groundwater building up in the old city.

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**Who acts:** Disaster, way, huge amounts · **What happens:** strike, lay, bring, be out, pipe, result · **To what, where:** late 1970s, water pipes, water, old city, huge amounts, groundwater

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This is a sentence of the English Wikipedia article «Sanaa». The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Disaster, way, huge amounts), 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:Sanaa:95
# text = Disaster struck in the late 1970s — water pipes were laid to bring water into the old city, but there was no way to pipe it out, resulting in huge amounts of groundwater building up in the old city.
1	Disaster	disaster	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	_
2	struck	strike	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
3	in	in	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	late	late	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	1970s	1970s	NOUN	NNS	Number=Ptan|NumForm=Combi|NumType=Card	2	obl	_	_
7	—	-	PUNCT	:	_	11	punct	_	_
8	water	water	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	compound	_	_
9	pipes	pipe	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	nsubj:pass	_	_
10	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	aux:pass	_	_
11	laid	lay	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	2	conj	_	_
12	to	to	PART	TO	_	13	mark	_	_
13	bring	bring	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	xcomp	_	_
14	water	water	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	_
15	into	into	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
17	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	amod	_	_
18	city	city	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
20	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
21	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	22	expl	_	_
22	was	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	_
23	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	24	det	_	_
24	way	way	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	nsubj	_	_
25	to	to	PART	TO	_	26	mark	_	_
26	pipe	pipe	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	acl	_	_
27	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	26	nsubj	_	_
28	out	out	ADP	RP	_	22	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	30	punct	_	_
30	resulting	result	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	22	advcl	_	_
31	in	in	ADP	IN	_	33	case	_	_
32	huge	huge	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	33	amod	_	_
33	amounts	amount	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	30	obl	_	_
34	of	of	ADP	IN	_	35	case	_	_
35	groundwater	groundwater	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	33	nmod	_	_
36	building	build	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	33	acl	_	_
37	up	up	ADP	RP	_	36	compound:prt	_	_
38	in	in	ADP	IN	_	41	case	_	_
39	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	41	det	_	_
40	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	41	amod	_	_
41	city	city	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	36	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
42	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **strike** | participle | Disaster |  |  | the late 1970s |  |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in 1970s=Location |
| 2 | **lay** | past · passive |  | water pipes |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **bring** | to-infinitive |  | water |  | the old city |  |  | vn bring-11.3-1 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent water=Theme into city=Destination |
| 4 | **be out** | past | no way |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 5 | **pipe** |  | way |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 6 | **result** | gerund | no way *not said here* |  |  | huge amounts of groundwater |  |  | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in amount=Location |
| 7 | **build up** | gerund | huge amounts of groundwater *not said here* |  |  | the old city |  |  | vn caused\_calibratable\_cos-45.6.2-1 «NP V ADV-Middle»: agent=Patient |
| 8 | **amount** |  |  | groundwater |  |  |  |  | nom amount «possession 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, «Sanaa», 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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