---
title: He was surrounded by a turbulent band of fighting chiefs. — Hawaiian Historical Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: He was surrounded by a turbulent band of fighting chiefs. Who acts: turbulent band. 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 215

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He was surrounded by a turbulent band of fighting chiefs.

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**Who acts:** turbulent band · **What happens:** surround, fight · **To what, where:** king, chiefs

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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 (turbulent band), 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:pg66357:14:215
# text = He was surrounded by a turbulent band of fighting chiefs.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj:pass	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	aux:pass	_	_
3	surrounded	surround	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
4	by	by	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
6	turbulent	turbulent	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	band	band	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl:agent	_	_
8	of	of	SCONJ	IN	_	9	mark	_	_
9	fighting	fight	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	7	acl	_	_
10	chiefs	chief	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **surround** | past · passive | a turbulent band | king |  |  |  |  | vn contiguous\_location-47.8 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme subject=Co-Theme |
| 2 | **fight** | gerund | a turbulent band *not said here* | chiefs |  |  |  |  | vn battle-36.4-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent chief=Co-Agent |

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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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