---
title: Then they met in a great council to select a new king from the high… — Hawaiian Historical Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: Then they met in a great council to select a new king from the high chief families. Who acts: courts. A sentence of «Hawaiian Historical Legends» by W. D. Westervelt, King Kahahana, About 1773, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Hawaiian Historical Legends, King Kahahana, About 1773, sentence 5

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Then they met in a great council to select a new king from the high chief families.

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**Who acts:** courts · **What happens:** meet, select · **To what, where:** great council, new king, high chief families

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This is a sentence of «Hawaiian Historical Legends» by W. D. Westervelt, King Kahahana, About 1773. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (courts), 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:pg66357:13:5
# text = Then they met in a great council to select a new king from the high chief families.
1	Then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	3	advmod	_	_
2	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	met	meet	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	in	in	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
6	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	council	council	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	_
8	to	to	PART	TO	_	9	mark	_	_
9	select	select	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	advcl	_	_
10	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
11	new	new	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
12	king	king	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	_
13	from	from	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
15	high	high	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	amod	_	_
16	chief	chief	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	compound	_	_
17	families	family	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **meet** | past | courts *= court* |  |  | a great council | then |  | vn meet-36.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **select** | to-infinitive | courts *= court* *not said here* | a new king |  | the high chief families |  |  | vn obtain-13.5.2 «NP V NP PP.source»: agent=Agent king=Theme from family=Source |

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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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