---
title: As low-lying islands lacking a surrounding shallow shelf, the commun… — Tuvalu · tree and pragmatics
description: As low-lying islands lacking a surrounding shallow shelf, the communities of Tuvalu are especially susceptible to changes in sea level and undissipated storms. Who acts: lying islands. A sentence of Wikipedia's «Tuvalu» with its dependency tree and pragmatics.
---

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# Tuvalu, sentence 174

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From Wikipedia, [«Tuvalu»](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuvalu), 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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As low-lying islands lacking a surrounding shallow shelf, the communities of Tuvalu are especially susceptible to changes in sea level and undissipated storms.

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**Who acts:** lying islands · **What happens:** lie, lack, surround, be · **To what, where:** surrounding shallow shelf

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This is a sentence of the English Wikipedia article «Tuvalu». The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (lying islands), 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:Tuvalu:174
# text = As low-lying islands lacking a surrounding shallow shelf, the communities of Tuvalu are especially susceptible to changes in sea level and undissipated storms.
1	As	as	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
2	low	low	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	lying	lie	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	5	amod	_	_
5	islands	island	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	18	obl	_	_
6	lacking	lack	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	5	acl	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
8	surrounding	surround	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	10	amod	_	_
9	shallow	shallow	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	shelf	shelf	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	communities	community	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	conj	_	_
14	of	of	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	Tuvalu	Tuvalu	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	13	nmod	_	_
16	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	18	cop	_	_
17	especially	especially	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	_
18	susceptible	susceptible	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
19	to	to	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
20	changes	change	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	18	obl	_	_
21	in	in	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
22	sea	sea	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	compound	_	_
23	level	level	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	nmod	_	_
24	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	26	cc	_	_
25	undissipated	undissipated	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	26	amod	_	_
26	storms	storm	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	20	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	18	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **lie** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **lack** | gerund | lying islands *not said here* | a surrounding shallow shelf and the communities of Tuvalu |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **surround** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn contiguous\_location-47.8 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **is** | present |  |  |  |  |  | as lying islands; to changes in sea level and undissipated storms; especially, susceptible *property* | tree rules |

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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, «Tuvalu», 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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