---
title: A horrified expression crossed his face and he hastily started to wi… — Hawaiian Historical Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: A horrified expression crossed his face and he hastily started to withdraw the bananas. Who acts: horrified expression, expression. A sentence of «Hawaiian Historical Legends» by W. D. Westervelt, Last of the Tabu, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Hawaiian Historical Legends, Last of the Tabu, sentence 23

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A horrified expression crossed his face and he hastily started to withdraw the bananas.

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**Who acts:** horrified expression, expression · **What happens:** cross, start, withdraw · **To what, where:** face, bananas

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This is a sentence of «Hawaiian Historical Legends» by W. D. Westervelt, Last of the Tabu. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (horrified expression, expression), 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:pg66357:19:23
# text = A horrified expression crossed his face and he hastily started to withdraw the bananas.
1	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	horrified	horrified	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	expression	expression	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	crossed	cross	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	6	nmod:poss	_	_
6	face	face	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
8	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
9	hastily	hastily	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	_
10	started	start	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
11	to	to	PART	TO	_	12	mark	_	_
12	withdraw	withdraw	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	xcomp	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	bananas	banana	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **cross** | past | a horrified expression | expression's face |  |  |  |  | vn crane-40.3.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent face=Patient |
| 2 | **start** | past | expression |  |  |  |  | hastily *property* | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 3 | **withdraw** | to-infinitive | expression *not said here* | the bananas |  |  |  |  | vn remove-10.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent banana=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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