---
title: It has long been a tangled group of large rounded sand hills. — Hawaiian Historical Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: It has long been a tangled group of large rounded sand hills. Who acts: tract. A sentence of «Hawaiian Historical Legends» by W. D. Westervelt, The Alapa Regiment, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Hawaiian Historical Legends, The Alapa Regiment, sentence 166

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It has long been a tangled group of large rounded sand hills.

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**Who acts:** tract · **What happens:** have, tangle, be, round · **To what, where:** tangled group

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This is a sentence of «Hawaiian Historical Legends» by W. D. Westervelt, The Alapa Regiment. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (tract), 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:pg66357:14:166
# text = It has long been a tangled group of large rounded sand hills.
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	has	have	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	long	long	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	7	advmod	_	_
4	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	7	cop	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
6	tangled	tangle	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	7	amod	_	_
7	group	group	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
8	of	of	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
9	large	large	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
10	rounded	round	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	12	amod	_	_
11	sand	sand	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	compound	_	_
12	hills	hill	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** | present | tract |  |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **tangle** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **is a** | participle |  | a tangled group |  |  |  | of large rounded sand hills; long *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **round** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn bend-45.2 «NP.patient V»: agent=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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