---
title: They thought but little of putting to death their servants. — Hawaiian Historical Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: They thought but little of putting to death their servants. Who acts: 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 121

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They thought but little of putting to death their servants.

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**Who acts:** fishermen · **What happens:** think, put

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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 (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:pg66357:18:121
# text = They thought but little of putting to death their servants.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	thought	think	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
4	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	conj	_	_
5	of	of	SCONJ	IN	_	6	mark	_	_
6	putting	put	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	4	advcl	_	_
7	to	to	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	death	death	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	_
9	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	10	nmod:poss	_	_
10	servants	servant	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **think** *speech: other* | past | fishermen *= fisherman* |  |  |  |  |  | vn focus-87.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **put** | gerund | fishermen *= fisherman* *not said here* |  |  |  |  | to death and fishermen's servants | vn invest-13.5.4-1 «NP V PP»: agent=Agent |

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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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