---
title: They pronounced curses upon the Hilo chiefs. — Hawaiian Historical Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: They pronounced curses upon the Hilo chiefs. Who acts: 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 28

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They pronounced curses upon the Hilo chiefs.

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**Who acts:** bodies · **What happens:** pronounce · **To what, where:** curses

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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 (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:pg66357:18:28
# text = They pronounced curses upon the Hilo chiefs.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	pronounced	pronounce	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	curses	curse	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obj	_	_
4	upon	upon	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
6	Hilo	Hilo	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	7	compound	_	_
7	chiefs	chief	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **pronounce** | past | bodies *= body* | curses |  |  |  | upon the Hilo chiefs | vn dub-29.3.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent curse=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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