---
title: That man is very ignorant who thinks the old days best. — Hawaiian Historical Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: That man is very ignorant who thinks the old days best. 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 176

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That man is very ignorant who thinks the old days best.

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**Who acts:** man · **What happens:** be, think

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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:pg66357:18:176
# text = That man is very ignorant who thinks the old days best.
1	That	that	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	2	det	_	_
2	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
3	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
4	very	very	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	ignorant	ignorant	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
6	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	7	nsubj	_	_
7	thinks	think	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	ccomp	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
9	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	days	day	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	obj	_	_
11	best	well	ADV	RBS	Degree=Sup	7	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | present | that man |  |  |  |  | ignorant *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **think** *speech: other* | present |  |  |  |  | day | who *nsubj*; well *property* | vn focus-87.1-1 «NP V»: 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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