---
title: It was a handful of eight against what was said to be a force of at… — Hawaiian Historical Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: It was a handful of eight against what was said to be a force of at least six hundred. Who acts: six hundred. A sentence of «Hawaiian Historical Legends» by W. D. Westervelt, The Eight of Oahu, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Hawaiian Historical Legends, The Eight of Oahu, sentence 36

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It was a handful of eight against what was said to be a force of at least six hundred.

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**Who acts:** six hundred · **What happens:** be, say · **To what, where:** handful, force · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Hawaiian Historical Legends» by W. D. Westervelt, The Eight of Oahu. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (six hundred), 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:pg66357:16:36
# text = It was a handful of eight against what was said to be a force of at least six hundred.
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	handful	handful	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
5	of	of	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	eight	eight	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	4	nmod	_	_
7	against	against	SCONJ	IN	_	10	mark	_	_
8	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	10	nsubj:pass	_	_
9	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	aux:pass	_	_
10	said	say	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	4	acl:relcl	_	_
11	to	to	PART	TO	_	14	mark	_	_
12	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	cop	_	_
13	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	force	force	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	ccomp	_	_
15	of	of	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
16	at	at	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	least	least	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	18	nmod	_	_
18	six	six	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	19	compound	_	_
19	hundred	hundred	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	14	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | six hundred *= hundred* | a handful |  |  |  | of eight | tree rules |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past · passive |  | a handful |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: subject=Topic |
| 3 | **is a** | to-infinitive |  | a force |  |  |  | of six hundred | tree rules |

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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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