---
title: Most followers on the island today are Sunni who follow the Shafi'i… — Sri Lanka · tree and pragmatics
description: Most followers on the island today are Sunni who follow the Shafi'i school and are believed to be descendants of Arab traders and the local women whom they married. Who acts: Most followers, followers. A sentence of Wikipedia's «Sri Lanka» with its dependency tree and pragmatics.
---

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# Sri Lanka, sentence 457

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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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Most followers on the island today are Sunni who follow the Shafi'i school and are believed to be descendants of Arab traders and the local women whom they married.

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**Who acts:** Most followers, followers · **What happens:** be, follow, believe, marry · **To what, where:** Shafi'i school, descendants, Arab traders

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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 (Most followers, followers), 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:457
# text = Most followers on the island today are Sunni who follow the Shafi'i school and are believed to be descendants of Arab traders and the local women whom they married.
1	Most	most	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	2	amod	_	_
2	followers	follower	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	nsubj	_	_
3	on	on	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	island	island	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	nmod	_	_
6	today	today	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nmod:unmarked	_	_
7	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	8	cop	_	_
8	Sunni	Sunni	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
9	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	10	nsubj	_	_
10	follow	follow	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	8	parataxis	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
12	Shafi'i	Shafi'i	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	13	compound	_	_
13	school	school	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
15	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	16	aux:pass	_	_
16	believed	believe	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	10	conj	_	_
17	to	to	PART	TO	_	19	mark	_	_
18	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	19	cop	_	_
19	descendants	descendant	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	obj	_	_
20	of	of	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
21	Arab	Arab	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	22	amod	_	_
22	traders	trader	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	19	nmod	_	_
23	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	26	cc	_	_
24	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	26	det	_	_
25	local	local	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	26	amod	_	_
26	women	woman	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	22	conj	_	_
27	whom	whom	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	29	obj	_	_
28	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	29	nsubj	_	_
29	married	marry	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	22	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | present | Most followers on the island  today |  |  |  |  | sunni *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **follow** | present |  | the Shafi'i school |  |  |  | who *nsubj* | vn chase-51.6 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent school=Theme |
| 3 | **believe** | present · passive |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn admire-31.2 «NP V that S» |
| 4 | **is a** | to-infinitive |  | descendants |  |  |  | of Arab traders and the local women | tree rules |
| 5 | **marry** | past | followers *= follower* | Arab traders and the local women |  |  |  |  | vn amalgamate-22.2-3-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent whom=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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