---
title: Maui then promised to spare her life if she would tell him what to do. — Hawaiian Historical Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: Maui then promised to spare her life if she would tell him what to do. Who acts: Maui, secret. 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 67

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Maui then promised to spare her life if she would tell him what to do.

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**Who acts:** Maui, secret · **What happens:** promise, spare, tell, do · **To what, where:** life, Maui · **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 (Maui, secret), 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:pg66357:2:67
# text = Maui then promised to spare her life if she would tell him what to do.
1	Maui	Maui	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
2	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	3	advmod	_	_
3	promised	promise	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	to	to	PART	TO	_	5	mark	_	_
5	spare	spare	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	xcomp	_	_
6	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	7	nmod:poss	_	_
7	life	life	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	_
8	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	11	mark	_	_
9	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
10	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
11	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	advcl	_	_
12	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	iobj	_	_
13	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	15	obj	_	_
14	to	to	PART	TO	_	15	mark	_	_
15	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **promise** *speech: promise* | past | Maui |  |  |  | then |  | vn promise-37.13 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **spare** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | Maui *not said here* | secret's life |  |  |  |  | vn bill-54.5 «NP V NP NP.asset»: agent=Agent life=Asset |
| 3 | **tell** *speech: assert* *a condition, not said to happen* | would | secret |  | Maui |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent he=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 4 | **do** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive |  |  |  |  |  | what *obj* | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent what=Eventuality |

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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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