---
title: By and by Maui learned to make fire by rubbing sticks together. — Hawaiian Historical Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: By and by Maui learned to make fire by rubbing sticks together. Who acts: 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 52

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By and by Maui learned to make fire by rubbing sticks together.

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**Who acts:** Maui · **What happens:** learn, make, rub · **To what, where:** fire, sticks

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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), 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:pg66357:2:52
# text = By and by Maui learned to make fire by rubbing sticks together.
1	By	by	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
2	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
3	by	by	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
4	Maui	Maui	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
5	learned	learn	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	to	to	PART	TO	_	7	mark	_	_
7	make	make	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	xcomp	_	_
8	fire	fire	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	_
9	by	by	SCONJ	IN	_	10	mark	_	_
10	rubbing	rub	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	7	advcl	_	_
11	sticks	stick	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	obj	_	_
12	together	together	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **learn** | past | Maui |  |  |  |  |  | vn learn-14-2-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **make** | to-infinitive | Maui *not said here* | fire |  |  |  |  | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset fire=Product |
| 3 | **rub** | gerund | Maui *not said here* | sticks |  |  |  | together *property* | vn spray-9.7-1 «NP V NP.theme»: agent=Agent stick=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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