---
title: The Oahu people asked him, “What kind of a thing was the ship?” — Hawaiian Historical Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: The Oahu people asked him, “What kind of a thing was the ship?” Who acts: Oahu people, 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 78

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The Oahu people asked him, “What kind of a thing was the ship?”

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**Who acts:** Oahu people, thing · **What happens:** ask, be · **To what, where:** Kauai · **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 (Oahu people, 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:pg66357:12:78
# text = The Oahu people asked him, “What kind of a thing was the ship?”
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	Oahu	Oahu	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	compound	_	_
3	people	people	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nsubj	_	_
4	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	iobj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
7	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	What	what	DET	WDT	PronType=Int	9	det	_	_
9	kind	kind	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	ccomp	_	_
10	of	of	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
11	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	thing	thing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nsubj	_	_
13	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	cop	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	ship	ship	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past | the Oahu people |  | Kauai |  |  | what kind *ccomp* | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent he=Recipient |
| 2 | **is** *in a quote* | past | a thing |  |  |  |  | of the ship | 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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