---
title: Assad transformed a Ba'athist party state into a dictatorship marked… — Syria · tree and pragmatics
description: Assad transformed a Ba'athist party state into a dictatorship marked by his pervasive grip on the party, armed forces, secret police, media, education sector, religious and cultural spheres and all aspects of civil society. Who acts: Assad. A sentence of Wikipedia's «Syria» with its dependency tree 
---

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# Syria, sentence 218

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From Wikipedia, [«Syria»](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syria), 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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Assad transformed a Ba'athist party state into a dictatorship marked by his pervasive grip on the party, armed forces, secret police, media, education sector, religious and cultural spheres and all aspects of civil society.

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**Who acts:** Assad · **What happens:** transform, mark, grip · **To what, where:** party state, dictatorship, party

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This is a sentence of the English Wikipedia article «Syria». The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Assad), 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:Syria:218
# text = Assad transformed a Ba'athist party state into a dictatorship marked by his pervasive grip on the party, armed forces, secret police, media, education sector, religious and cultural spheres and all aspects of civil society.
1	Assad	Assad	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	_
2	transformed	transform	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
4	Ba'athist	Ba'athist	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	compound	_	_
5	party	party	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	compound	_	_
6	state	state	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
7	into	into	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	dictatorship	dictatorship	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	_
10	marked	mark	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	9	acl	_	_
11	by	by	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
12	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	14	nmod:poss	_	_
13	pervasive	pervasive	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
14	grip	grip	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obl	_	_
15	on	on	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	party	party	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
19	armed	armed	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	20	amod	_	_
20	forces	force	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
22	secret	secret	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	23	amod	_	_
23	police	police	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	25	punct	_	_
25	media	media	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	28	punct	_	_
27	education	education	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	28	compound	_	_
28	sector	sector	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	30	punct	_	_
30	religious	religious	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	parataxis	_	_
31	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	33	cc	_	_
32	cultural	cultural	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	33	amod	_	_
33	spheres	sphere	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	30	conj	_	_
34	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	36	cc	_	_
35	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	36	det	_	_
36	aspects	aspect	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	33	conj	_	_
37	of	of	ADP	IN	_	39	case	_	_
38	civil	civil	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	39	amod	_	_
39	society	society	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	36	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
40	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **transform** | past | Assad | a party state |  |  |  | into a dictatorship and secret police and media and education sector *result* | vn turn-26.6.1 «NP V NP.patient PP.result»: agent=Agent state=Patient into dictatorship=Result |
| 2 | **mark** | participle |  | a dictatorship and secret police and media and education sector *not said here* |  |  |  | by Assad's pervasive grip on the party and armed forces | vn image\_impression-25.1 «NP V NP.theme PP.destination»: agent=Agent by grip=Destination |
| 3 | **grip** |  | Assad |  |  | the party |  |  | nom grip «act transitive»: poss=agent on=place |

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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, «Syria», 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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