---
title: Yet the wisdom of doing what was asked was not clear. — Hawaiian Historical Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: Yet the wisdom of doing what was asked was not clear. Who acts: wisdom. A sentence of «Hawaiian Historical Legends» by W. D. Westervelt, King Kahahana, About 1773, 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/pg66357/13/54/)

<!-- 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/) / [King Kahahana, About 1773](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66357/13/) / 54

# Hawaiian Historical Legends, King Kahahana, About 1773, sentence 54

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Yet the wisdom of doing what was asked was not clear.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** wisdom · **What happens:** do, ask, not be

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (wisdom), 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:pg66357:13:54
# text = Yet the wisdom of doing what was asked was not clear.
1	Yet	yet	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	wisdom	wisdom	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	_
4	of	of	SCONJ	IN	_	5	mark	_	_
5	doing	do	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	3	acl	_	_
6	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	8	nsubj:pass	_	_
7	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	aux:pass	_	_
8	asked	ask	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	5	ccomp	_	_
9	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	cop	_	_
10	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	11	advmod	_	_
11	clear	clear	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **do** | gerund | the wisdom *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past · passive |  |  |  |  |  | what *nsubj:pass* | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP.recipient»: subject=Recipient |
| 3 | **not** **is** | past | the wisdom |  |  |  |  | clear *property* | 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 53](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66357/13/53/)
- next →: [sentence 55](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66357/13/55/)
- ↑ back to [King Kahahana, About 1773](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66357/13/)