---
title: The Phoenicians were probably attracted to the site by its natural h… — Tripoli, Libya · tree and pragmatics
description: The Phoenicians were probably attracted to the site by its natural harbor, flanked on the western shore by the small, easily defensible peninsula, on which they established their colony. Who acts: natural harbor, Phoenicians. A sentence of Wikipedia's «Tripoli, Libya» with its dependency tree and pr
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/wikipedia/en/Tripoli,_Libya/15/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [wikipedia](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/wikipedia/) / [en](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/wikipedia/en/) / [Tripoli, Libya](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/wikipedia/en/Tripoli,_Libya/) / 15

# Tripoli, Libya, sentence 15

<!-- div src -->

From Wikipedia, [«Tripoli, Libya»](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tripoli,_Libya), 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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
The Phoenicians were probably attracted to the site by its natural harbor, flanked on the western shore by the small, easily defensible peninsula, on which they established their colony.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** natural harbor, Phoenicians · **What happens:** attract, flank, establish · **To what, where:** Phoenicians, natural harbor, western shore, colony

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of the English Wikipedia article «Tripoli, Libya». The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (natural harbor, Phoenicians), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:Tripoli,_Libya:15
# text = The Phoenicians were probably attracted to the site by its natural harbor, flanked on the western shore by the small, easily defensible peninsula, on which they established their colony.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	Phoenicians	Phoenician	PROPN	NNPS	Number=Plur	5	nsubj:pass	_	_
3	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux:pass	_	_
4	probably	probably	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	attracted	attract	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
6	to	to	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	site	site	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
9	by	by	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
10	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	12	nmod:poss	_	_
11	natural	natural	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
12	harbor	harbor	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
14	flanked	flank	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	12	acl	_	_
15	on	on	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
17	western	western	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	amod	_	_
18	shore	shore	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	_
19	by	by	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	25	det	_	_
21	small	small	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	25	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	25	punct	_	_
23	easily	easily	ADV	RB	_	24	advmod	_	_
24	defensible	defensible	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	25	amod	_	_
25	peninsula	peninsula	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	30	punct	_	_
27	on	on	ADP	IN	_	28	case	_	_
28	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	30	obl	_	_
29	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	30	nsubj	_	_
30	established	establish	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
31	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	32	nmod:poss	_	_
32	colony	colony	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	30	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
33	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **attract** | past · passive | site's natural harbor | the Phoenicians |  |  |  | to the site *result*; probably *property* | vn lure-59.3 «NP V NP PP.result»: agent=Agent subject=Patient to site=Result |
| 2 | **flank** | participle |  | site's natural harbor *not said here* |  | the western shore |  | by the small defensible peninsula | vn contiguous\_location-47.8 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **establish** | past | Phoenicians *= phoenician* | Phoenicians's colony |  |  |  | which *obl* | vn base-97.1 «NP V NP PP.source»: agent=Agent colony=Theme on which=Source |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**Text:** the English Wikipedia, «Tripoli, Libya», 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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/wikipedia/en/Tripoli,_Libya/14/)
- next →: [sentence 16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/wikipedia/en/Tripoli,_Libya/16/)
- ↑ back to [Tripoli, Libya](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/wikipedia/en/Tripoli,_Libya/)