---
title: He managed to grasp a large piece of lava. — Hawaiian Historical Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: He managed to grasp a large piece of lava. Who acts: man. A sentence of «Hawaiian Historical Legends» by W. D. Westervelt, The Law of the Splintered Paddle, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Hawaiian Historical Legends, The Law of the Splintered Paddle, sentence 107

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He managed to grasp a large piece of lava.

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**Who acts:** man · **What happens:** manage, grasp · **To what, where:** large piece

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This is a sentence of «Hawaiian Historical Legends» by W. D. Westervelt, The Law of the Splintered Paddle. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (man), 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:pg66357:18:107
# text = He managed to grasp a large piece of lava.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	managed	manage	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	to	to	PART	TO	_	4	mark	_	_
4	grasp	grasp	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	xcomp	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
6	large	large	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	piece	piece	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	_
8	of	of	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	lava	lava	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **manage** | past | man |  |  |  |  |  | vn succeed-74-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 2 | **grasp** | to-infinitive | man *not said here* | a large piece of lava |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer piece=Stimulus |

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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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