---
title: He and his oarsmen were almost starving. — Hawaiian Historical Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: He and his oarsmen were almost starving. Who acts: King. A sentence of «Hawaiian Historical Legends» by W. D. Westervelt, First Foreigners, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Hawaiian Historical Legends, First Foreigners, sentence 100

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He and his oarsmen were almost starving.

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**Who acts:** King · **What happens:** starve

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This is a sentence of «Hawaiian Historical Legends» by W. D. Westervelt, First Foreigners. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (King), 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 tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg66357:11:100
# text = He and his oarsmen were almost starving.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
2	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
3	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	4	nmod:poss	_	_
4	oarsmen	oarsman	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	1	conj	_	_
5	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
6	almost	almost	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
7	starving	starve	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **starve** | past · progressive | King |  |  |  |  | almost *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:** «Hawaiian Historical Legends» by W. D. Westervelt, Project Gutenberg book 66357 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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