---
title: They were of almost equal stature, averaging nearly six feet in heig… — Hawaiian Historical Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: They were of almost equal stature, averaging nearly six feet in height. Who acts: ranks, equal stature. 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 77

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They were of almost equal stature, averaging nearly six feet in height.

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**Who acts:** ranks, equal stature · **What happens:** be, average · **To what, where:** six feet, height

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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 (ranks, equal stature), 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:pg66357:14:77
# text = They were of almost equal stature, averaging nearly six feet in height.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
2	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
3	of	of	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
4	almost	almost	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	equal	equal	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	stature	stature	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
8	averaging	average	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	6	acl	_	_
9	nearly	nearly	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	_
10	six	six	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	11	nummod	_	_
11	feet	foot	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	obj	_	_
12	in	in	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
13	height	height	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | ranks *= rank* |  |  |  |  | of equal stature | tree rules |
| 2 | **average** | gerund | equal stature *not said here* | six feet |  | height |  |  | vn multiply-108-3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent foot=Theme |

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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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