---
title: One said to another, “What is this thing which has branches?” — Hawaiian Historical Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: One said to another, “What is this thing which has branches?” Who acts: One, thing. A sentence of «Hawaiian Historical Legends» by W. D. Westervelt, Captain Cook, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Hawaiian Historical Legends, Captain Cook, sentence 29

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One said to another, “What is this thing which has branches?”

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**Who acts:** One, thing · **What happens:** say, be, have · **To what, where:** another, thing, branches · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (One, thing), 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:pg66357:12:29
# text = One said to another, “What is this thing which has branches?”
1	One	one	PRON	PRP	Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	to	to	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
4	another	another	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
6	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	What	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	10	nsubj	_	_
8	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	10	cop	_	_
9	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	10	det	_	_
10	thing	thing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	ccomp	_	_
11	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	12	nsubj	_	_
12	has	have	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	10	acl:relcl	_	_
13	branches	branch	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: ask* | past | One |  | another |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V PP.recipient S-Quote»: agent=Agent to another=Recipient |
| 2 | **is a** *in a quote* | present |  | this thing |  |  |  | What *nsubj* | tree rules |
| 3 | **have** *in a quote* | present | this thing | branches |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent branch=Patient |

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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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