---
title: Meantime the fishermen had secured spears and were returning to kill… — Hawaiian Historical Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: Meantime the fishermen had secured spears and were returning to kill Ka-meha-meha. Who acts: you, fishermen. 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 111

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Meantime the fishermen had secured spears and were returning to kill Ka-meha-meha.

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**Who acts:** you, fishermen · **What happens:** meantime, have, secure, return, kill · **To what, where:** secured spears, Ka

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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 (you, fishermen), 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:pg66357:18:111
# text = Meantime the fishermen had secured spears and were returning to kill Ka-meha-meha.
1	Meantime	meantime	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	fishermen	fisherman	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nsubj	_	_
4	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	1	ccomp	_	_
5	secured	secure	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	6	amod	_	_
6	spears	spear	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obj	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
8	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	_
9	returning	return	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	4	conj	_	_
10	to	to	PART	TO	_	11	mark	_	_
11	kill	kill	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	xcomp	_	_
12	Ka	Ka	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	14	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	meha	meha	X	FW	Foreign=Yes	12	dep	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	16	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	meha	meha	X	FW	Foreign=Yes	12	dep	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	1	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **meantime** | imperative | you *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **have** | past | the fishermen | secured spears |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent spear=Patient |
| 3 | **secure** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn shake-22.3-2-1 «NP V ADV-Middle»: agent=Patient |
| 4 | **return** | past · progressive | the fishermen *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 5 | **kill** | to-infinitive | the fishermen *not said here* | Ka |  |  |  |  | vn remove-10.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent ka=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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