---
title: Priests were occupied with signs and incantations to discover some o… — Hawaiian Historical Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: Priests were occupied with signs and incantations to discover some one who might have prayed the great king to death. Who acts: Priests. 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 58

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Priests were occupied with signs and incantations to discover some one who might have prayed the great king to death.

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**Who acts:** Priests · **What happens:** be, discover, pray · **To what, where:** one

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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 (Priests), 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:pg66357:19:58
# text = Priests were occupied with signs and incantations to discover some one who might have prayed the great king to death.
1	Priests	priest	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	nsubj	_	_
2	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	cop	_	_
3	occupied	occupied	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
4	with	with	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	signs	sign	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obl	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
7	incantations	incantation	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	conj	_	_
8	to	to	PART	TO	_	9	mark	_	_
9	discover	discover	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	advcl	_	_
10	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	11	det	_	_
11	one	one	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	_
12	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	15	nsubj:pass	_	_
13	might	might	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	15	aux	_	_
14	have	have	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	aux	_	_
15	prayed	pray	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	11	acl:relcl	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
17	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	amod	_	_
18	king	king	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obj	_	_
19	to	to	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
20	death	death	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | Priests |  |  |  |  | with signs and incantations; occupied *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **discover** | to-infinitive | Priests *not said here* | some one |  |  |  |  | vn discover-84-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent one=Topic |
| 3 | **pray** | might · perfect · passive |  | some one |  |  |  | to death; the great king *obj* | 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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