---
title: In a very short time the heavy rains beat through the decaying roof. — Hawaiian Historical Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: In a very short time the heavy rains beat through the decaying roof. Who acts: heavy rains. 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 49

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In a very short time the heavy rains beat through the decaying roof.

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**Who acts:** heavy rains · **What happens:** beat, decay · **To what, where:** decaying roof

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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 (heavy rains), 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:pg66357:2:49
# text = In a very short time the heavy rains beat through the decaying roof.
1	In	in	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
2	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
3	very	very	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
4	short	short	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
7	heavy	heavy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	rains	rain	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	nsubj	_	_
9	beat	beat	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
10	through	through	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
12	decaying	decay	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	13	amod	_	_
13	roof	roof	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **beat** | present | the heavy rains |  |  | the decaying roof | time |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme through roof=Location |
| 2 | **decay** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn entity\_specific\_cos-45.5 «NP.patient V»: agent=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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