---
title: The natives held up mats as shields, but found they were no protecti… — Hawaiian Historical Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: The natives held up mats as shields, but found they were no protection against the bullets. Who acts: natives. A sentence of «Hawaiian Historical Legends» by W. D. Westervelt, Captain Cook, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66357/12/187/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Hawaiian Historical Legends](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66357/) / [Captain Cook](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66357/12/) / 187

# Hawaiian Historical Legends, Captain Cook, sentence 187

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
The natives held up mats as shields, but found they were no protection against the bullets.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** natives · **What happens:** hold up, find, be · **To what, where:** mats, protection · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Hawaiian Historical Legends» by W. D. Westervelt, Captain Cook. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (natives), 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 tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg66357:12:187
# text = The natives held up mats as shields, but found they were no protection against the bullets.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	natives	native	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	nsubj	_	_
3	held	hold	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	2	acl	_	_
4	up	up	ADP	RP	_	3	compound:prt	_	_
5	mats	mat	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obj	_	_
6	as	as	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	shields	shield	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
9	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
10	found	find	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
11	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
12	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	cop	_	_
13	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	14	det	_	_
14	protection	protection	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	ccomp	_	_
15	against	against	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	bullets	bullet	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **hold up** | participle | the natives *not said here* | mats |  |  |  | as shields | vn support-15.3-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Pivot mat=Theme |
| 2 | **find** | past | the natives |  |  |  |  |  | vn declare-29.4-1-1 «NP V what S\_INF»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **is a** | past | natives *= native* | no protection |  |  |  | against the bullets | tree rules |

<!-- .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:** «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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 186](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66357/12/186/)
- next →: [sentence 188](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66357/12/188/)
- ↑ back to [Captain Cook](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66357/12/)