---
title: Members of the Burgher community speak variant forms of Portuguese C… — Sri Lanka · tree and pragmatics
description: Members of the Burgher community speak variant forms of Portuguese Creole and Dutch with varying proficiency, while members of the Malay community speak a form of Creole Malay that is unique to the island. Who acts: Members, Creole Malay. A sentence of Wikipedia's «Sri Lanka» with its dependency tre
---

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# Sri Lanka, sentence 441

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From Wikipedia, [«Sri Lanka»](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sri_Lanka), 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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Members of the Burgher community speak variant forms of Portuguese Creole and Dutch with varying proficiency, while members of the Malay community speak a form of Creole Malay that is unique to the island.

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**Who acts:** Members, Creole Malay · **What happens:** speak, vary, be, form · **To what, where:** variant forms, proficiency, form, Portuguese Creole, Creole Malay · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of the English Wikipedia article «Sri Lanka». The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Members, Creole Malay), 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:Sri_Lanka:441
# text = Members of the Burgher community speak variant forms of Portuguese Creole and Dutch with varying proficiency, while members of the Malay community speak a form of Creole Malay that is unique to the island.
1	Members	member	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	nsubj	_	_
2	of	of	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
4	Burgher	Burgher	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	compound	_	_
5	community	community	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	1	nmod	_	_
6	speak	speak	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	variant	variant	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	forms	form	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	obj	_	_
9	of	of	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	Portuguese	portuguese	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	Creole	Creole	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	8	nmod	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
13	Dutch	dutch	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	conj	_	_
14	with	with	SCONJ	IN	_	15	mark	_	_
15	varying	vary	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	13	advcl	_	_
16	proficiency	proficiency	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	24	punct	_	_
18	while	while	SCONJ	IN	_	24	mark	_	_
19	members	member	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	24	nsubj	_	_
20	of	of	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
21	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
22	Malay	malay	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	23	amod	_	_
23	community	community	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	nmod	_	_
24	speak	speak	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	conj	_	_
25	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	26	det	_	_
26	form	form	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	obj	_	_
27	of	of	ADP	IN	_	29	case	_	_
28	Creole	Creole	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	29	compound	_	_
29	Malay	malay	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	26	nmod	_	_
30	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	32	nsubj	_	_
31	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	32	cop	_	_
32	unique	unique	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	29	acl:relcl	_	_
33	to	to	ADP	IN	_	35	case	_	_
34	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	35	det	_	_
35	island	island	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	32	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
36	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **speak** *speech: other* | present | Members of the Burgher community | variant forms of Portuguese Creole |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **vary** | gerund | Members of the Burgher community *not said here* | proficiency |  |  |  |  | vn caused\_calibratable\_cos-45.6.2-1 «NP V NP.patient»: agent=Causer proficiency=Patient |
| 3 | **speak** *speech: other* | infinitive | members of the Malay community | a form of Creole Malay |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **is** | present | Creole Malay |  |  |  |  | to the island; unique *property* | tree rules |
| 5 | **form** |  |  | Portuguese Creole |  |  |  |  | nom form «communication transitive»: of=patient |
| 6 | **form** |  |  | Creole Malay |  |  |  |  | nom form «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, «Sri Lanka», 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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