---
title: Maui persuaded him to assist in lifting the burden. — Hawaiian Historical Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: Maui persuaded him to assist in lifting the burden. Who acts: Maui, Ru. 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 38

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Maui persuaded him to assist in lifting the burden.

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**Who acts:** Maui, Ru · **What happens:** persuade, assist, lift · **To what, where:** Ru, burden

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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 (Maui, Ru), 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:pg66357:2:38
# text = Maui persuaded him to assist in lifting the burden.
1	Maui	Maui	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	_
2	persuaded	persuade	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	obj	_	_
4	to	to	PART	TO	_	5	mark	_	_
5	assist	assist	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	xcomp	_	_
6	in	in	SCONJ	IN	_	7	mark	_	_
7	lifting	lift	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	5	advcl	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	burden	burden	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **persuade** | past | Maui | Ru |  |  |  |  | vn compel-59.1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent he=Patient clause=Result |
| 2 | **assist** | to-infinitive | Ru *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn help-72.1-1-1 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **lift** | gerund | Ru *not said here* | the burden |  |  |  |  | vn put\_direction-9.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent burden=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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