---
title: Birka was founded around 750 AD as a trading port by a king or merch… — Sweden · tree and pragmatics
description: Birka was founded around 750 AD as a trading port by a king or merchants trying to control trade. Who acts: king. A sentence of Wikipedia's «Sweden» with its dependency tree and pragmatics.
---

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# Sweden, sentence 49

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From Wikipedia, [«Sweden»](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweden), 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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Birka was founded around 750 AD as a trading port by a king or merchants trying to control trade.

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**Who acts:** king · **What happens:** found, merchant, try, control · **To what, where:** Birka, trade

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This is a sentence of the English Wikipedia article «Sweden». The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (king), 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:Sweden:49
# text = Birka was founded around 750 AD as a trading port by a king or merchants trying to control trade.
1	Birka	Birka	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	nsubj:pass	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	aux:pass	_	_
3	founded	found	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
4	around	around	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	750	750	NUM	CD	NumForm=Digit|NumType=Card	6	nummod	_	_
6	AD	ad	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	_
7	as	as	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
8	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
9	trading	trading	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	compound	_	_
10	port	port	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	_
11	by	by	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	king	king	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	_
14	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
15	merchants	merchant	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
16	trying	try	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	15	xcomp	_	_
17	to	to	PART	TO	_	18	mark	_	_
18	control	control	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	16	xcomp	_	_
19	trade	trade	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **found** | past · passive | a king | Birka |  |  |  | as a trading port; 750 AD *obl* | vn establish-55.5-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent subject=Patient |
| 2 | **merchant** | present | a king *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **try** | gerund | a king *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn try-61.1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 4 | **control** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | a king *not said here* | trade |  |  |  |  | vn enforce-63 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent trade=Theme |

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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, «Sweden», 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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