---
title: They sang of our friends whose bodies lie in the ferns. — Hawaiian Historical Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: They sang of our friends whose bodies lie in the ferns. Who acts: boats, bodies. 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 27

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They sang of our friends whose bodies lie in the ferns.

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**Who acts:** boats, bodies · **What happens:** sing, lie · **To what, where:** ferns

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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 (boats, bodies), 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:pg66357:18:27
# text = They sang of our friends whose bodies lie in the ferns.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	sang	sing	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	of	of	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
4	our	our	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	5	nmod:poss	_	_
5	friends	friend	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obl	_	_
6	whose	whose	PRON	WP$	Poss=Yes|PronType=Rel	7	nmod:poss	_	_
7	bodies	body	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	nsubj	_	_
8	lie	lie	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	acl:relcl	_	_
9	in	in	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	ferns	fern	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sing** *speech: express* | past | boats *= boat* |  |  |  |  | of our friends | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **lie** | present | bodies |  |  | the ferns |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent in fern=Location |

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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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