---
title: Swiss mercenaries were historically recruited by popes as part of an… — Vatican City · tree and pragmatics
description: Swiss mercenaries were historically recruited by popes as part of an army for the Papal States. Who acts: popes. A sentence of Wikipedia's «Vatican City» with its dependency tree and pragmatics.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/wikipedia/en/Vatican_City/178/)

<!-- 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/) / [Vatican City](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/wikipedia/en/Vatican_City/) / 178

# Vatican City, sentence 178

<!-- div src -->

From Wikipedia, [«Vatican City»](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vatican_City), 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 -->
Swiss mercenaries were historically recruited by popes as part of an army for the Papal States.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** popes · **What happens:** recruit · **To what, where:** Swiss mercenaries

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of the English Wikipedia article «Vatican City». The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (popes), 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:Vatican_City:178
# text = Swiss mercenaries were historically recruited by popes as part of an army for the Papal States.
1	Swiss	Swiss	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	amod	_	_
2	mercenaries	mercenary	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	nsubj:pass	_	_
3	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux:pass	_	_
4	historically	historically	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	recruited	recruit	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
6	by	by	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	popes	pope	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	obl	_	_
8	as	as	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	part	part	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
10	of	of	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	army	army	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nmod	_	_
13	for	for	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
15	Papal	Papal	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	16	compound	_	_
16	States	State	PROPN	NNPS	Number=Plur	12	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **recruit** | past · passive | popes | Swiss mercenaries |  |  |  | as part of a army for the Papal States; historically *property* | vn hire-13.5.3 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Agent subject=Theme as part=Attribute |

<!-- .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, «Vatican City», 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 177](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/wikipedia/en/Vatican_City/177/)
- next →: [sentence 179](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/wikipedia/en/Vatican_City/179/)
- ↑ back to [Vatican City](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/wikipedia/en/Vatican_City/)