---
title: Its coast was settled by Phoenicians starting as early as the 12th c… — Tunisia · tree and pragmatics
description: Its coast was settled by Phoenicians starting as early as the 12th century BC (Bizerte, Utica). Who acts: Phoenicians. A sentence of Wikipedia's «Tunisia» with its dependency tree and pragmatics.
---

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# Tunisia, sentence 50

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From Wikipedia, [«Tunisia»](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunisia), 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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Its coast was settled by Phoenicians starting as early as the 12th century BC (Bizerte, Utica).

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**Who acts:** Phoenicians · **What happens:** settle, start · **To what, where:** coast

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This is a sentence of the English Wikipedia article «Tunisia». The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Phoenicians), 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:Tunisia:50
# text = Its coast was settled by Phoenicians starting as early as the 12th century BC (Bizerte, Utica).
1	Its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	2	nmod:poss	_	_
2	coast	coast	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj:pass	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux:pass	_	_
4	settled	settle	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
5	by	by	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	Phoenicians	Phoenician	PROPN	NNPS	Number=Plur	4	obl:agent	_	_
7	starting	start	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	6	acl	_	_
8	as	as	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	_
9	early	early	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	7	advmod	_	_
10	as	as	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
12	12th	12th	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos|NumForm=Combi|NumType=Ord	13	amod	_	_
13	century	century	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	_
14	BC	BC	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	6	flat	_	_
15	(	(	PUNCT	-LRB-	_	16	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	Bizerte	Bizerte	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	4	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
18	Utica	Utica	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	16	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	)	)	PUNCT	-RRB-	_	16	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **settle** | past · passive | Phoenicians | beginning's coast |  |  |  | Bizerte and Utica *parataxis* | vn odge-46-1 «NP V ADV»: agent=Theme subject=Location |
| 2 | **start** | gerund | Phoenicians *not said here* |  |  |  | century | early *property* | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP.eventuality V»: agent=Eventuality |

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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, «Tunisia», 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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