---
title: Wholesale destruction, possibly because of the bitter war of 1783, s… — Hawaiian Historical Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: Wholesale destruction, possibly because of the bitter war of 1783, stared them in the face. Who acts: Wholesale destruction. 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 179

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Wholesale destruction, possibly because of the bitter war of 1783, stared them in the face.

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**Who acts:** Wholesale destruction · **What happens:** stare · **To what, where:** prisoners, face

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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 (Wholesale destruction), 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:pg66357:18:179
# text = Wholesale destruction, possibly because of the bitter war of 1783, stared them in the face.
1	Wholesale	wholesale	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	amod	_	_
2	destruction	destruction	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
4	possibly	possibly	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	_
5	because	because	ADP	IN	ExtPos=ADP	9	case	_	_
6	of	of	ADP	IN	_	5	fixed	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
8	bitter	bitter	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	war	war	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	nmod	_	_
10	of	of	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
11	1783	1783	NUM	CD	NumForm=Digit|NumType=Card	9	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
13	stared	stare	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
14	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	obj	_	_
15	in	in	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	face	face	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	13	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **stare** | past | Wholesale destruction because the bitter war of 1783 | prisoners *= prisoner* |  | the face |  |  | 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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