---
title: For a little while there was an exchange of blows. — Hawaiian Historical Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: For a little while there was an exchange of blows. 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 33

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For a little while there was an exchange of blows.

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**What happens:** be · **To what, where:** exchange

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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:pg66357:17:33
# text = For a little while there was an exchange of blows.
1	For	for	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
2	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	obl	_	_
4	while	while	SCONJ	IN	_	6	mark	_	_
5	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	6	expl	_	_
6	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	cop	_	_
7	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	exchange	exchange	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
9	of	of	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
10	blows	blow	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past |  | a exchange |  |  |  | for a little; of blows | 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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