---
title: The Manahiki Islanders say that Maui desired to separate the sky fro… — Hawaiian Historical Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: The Manahiki Islanders say that Maui desired to separate the sky from the earth. Who acts: Manahiki Islanders, Maui. A sentence of «Hawaiian Historical Legends» by W. D. Westervelt, Maui the Polynesian, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Hawaiian Historical Legends, Maui the Polynesian, sentence 36

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The Manahiki Islanders say that Maui desired to separate the sky from the earth.

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**Who acts:** Manahiki Islanders, Maui · **What happens:** say, desire, separate · **To what, where:** sky · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Hawaiian Historical Legends» by W. D. Westervelt, Maui the Polynesian. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Manahiki Islanders, Maui), 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:pg66357:2:36
# text = The Manahiki Islanders say that Maui desired to separate the sky from the earth.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	Manahiki	Manahiki	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	compound	_	_
3	Islanders	islander	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nsubj	_	_
4	say	say	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	7	mark	_	_
6	Maui	Maui	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	_
7	desired	desire	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	ccomp	_	_
8	to	to	PART	TO	_	9	mark	_	_
9	separate	separate	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	xcomp	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	sky	sky	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	_
12	from	from	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	earth	earth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	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 | **say** *speech: assert* | present | the Manahiki Islanders |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **desire** | past | Maui |  |  |  |  |  | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Pivot clause=Theme |
| 3 | **separate** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | Maui *not said here* | the sky |  |  |  | from the earth | vn separate-23.1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.co-patient»: agent=Agent sky=Patient from earth=Co-Patient |

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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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