---
title: Hostilities between settlers and Ni-Vanuatu were commonplace, often… — Vanuatu · tree and pragmatics
description: Hostilities between settlers and Ni-Vanuatu were commonplace, often centring on disputes over land which had been purchased in dubious circumstances. Who acts: Hostilities, commonplace. A sentence of Wikipedia's «Vanuatu» with its dependency tree and pragmatics.
---

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# Vanuatu, sentence 88

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From Wikipedia, [«Vanuatu»](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanuatu), 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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Hostilities between settlers and Ni-Vanuatu were commonplace, often centring on disputes over land which had been purchased in dubious circumstances.

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**Who acts:** Hostilities, commonplace · **What happens:** be, centre, purchase · **To what, where:** commonplace, disputes, land, dubious circumstances

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This is a sentence of the English Wikipedia article «Vanuatu». The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Hostilities, commonplace), 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:Vanuatu:88
# text = Hostilities between settlers and Ni-Vanuatu were commonplace, often centring on disputes over land which had been purchased in dubious circumstances.
1	Hostilities	hostility	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	nsubj	_	_
2	between	between	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
3	settlers	settler	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	1	nmod	_	_
4	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
5	Ni	Ni	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	Vanuatu	Vanuatu	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	conj	_	_
8	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	cop	_	_
9	commonplace	commonplace	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
11	often	often	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	_
12	centring	centre	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	9	acl	_	_
13	on	on	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
14	disputes	dispute	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	obl	_	_
15	over	over	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
16	land	land	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	_
17	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	20	nsubj:pass	_	_
18	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	20	aux	_	_
19	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	20	aux:pass	_	_
20	purchased	purchase	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	16	acl:relcl	_	_
21	in	in	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
22	dubious	dubious	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	23	amod	_	_
23	circumstances	circumstance	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	20	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | Hostilities between settlers and Ni and Vanuatu | commonplace |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **centre** | gerund | commonplace *not said here* |  |  | disputes |  | over land; often *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **purchase** | past · perfect · passive |  | land |  | dubious circumstances |  |  | vn obtain-13.5.2-1 «NP.asset V NP»: subject=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, «Vanuatu», 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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