---
title: They were able to stand with the sky resting on their shoulders. — Hawaiian Historical Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: They were able to stand with the sky resting on their shoulders. Who acts: Islanders, sky. 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 40

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They were able to stand with the sky resting on their shoulders.

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**Who acts:** Islanders, sky · **What happens:** be, stand, rest · **To what, where:** shoulders

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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 (Islanders, sky), 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:pg66357:2:40
# text = They were able to stand with the sky resting on their shoulders.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	cop	_	_
3	able	able	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
4	to	to	PART	TO	_	5	mark	_	_
5	stand	stand	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	xcomp	_	_
6	with	with	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	sky	sky	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
9	resting	rest	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	8	acl	_	_
10	on	on	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	12	nmod:poss	_	_
12	shoulders	shoulder	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	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 | Islanders *= islander* |  |  |  |  | able *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **stand** | to-infinitive | Islanders *= islander* *not said here* |  |  |  |  | with the sky | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **rest** | gerund | the sky *not said here* |  |  | Islanders's shoulders |  |  | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme on shoulder=Location |

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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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