---
title: Spears were seized, war clubs swung and oval, double-pointed stones… — Hawaiian Historical Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: Spears were seized, war clubs swung and oval, double-pointed stones dropped into the slings. A sentence of «Hawaiian Historical Legends» by W. D. Westervelt, The Red Mouth Gun, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Hawaiian Historical Legends, The Red Mouth Gun, sentence 32

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Spears were seized, war clubs swung and oval, double-pointed stones dropped into the slings.

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**What happens:** seize, swing, drop · **To what, where:** Spears, war clubs, double pointed stones, slings

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This is a sentence of «Hawaiian Historical Legends» by W. D. Westervelt, The Red Mouth Gun. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: 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:pg66357:17:32
# text = Spears were seized, war clubs swung and oval, double-pointed stones dropped into the slings.
1	Spears	spear	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	nsubj:pass	_	_
2	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	aux:pass	_	_
3	seized	seize	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
5	war	war	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	compound	_	_
6	clubs	club	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obl	_	_
7	swung	swing	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	6	acl	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
9	oval	oval	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
11	double	double	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	pointed	pointed	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
14	stones	stone	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	conj	_	_
15	dropped	drop	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	14	acl	_	_
16	into	into	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	slings	sling	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	15	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **seize** | past · passive |  | Spears |  |  |  | war clubs and double pointed stones *obl* | vn obtain-13.5.2 «NP V NP»: subject=Theme |
| 2 | **swing** | participle |  | war clubs and double pointed stones *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn calibratable\_cos-45.6.1-1 «NP.attribute V»: agent=Attribute |
| 3 | **drop** | participle |  | double pointed stones *not said here* |  | the slings |  |  | vn roll-51.3.1 «NP V PP.trajectory»: agent=Theme into sling=Trajectory |

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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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