---
title: The bird told the demi-god to rub the stalks of water plants together. — Hawaiian Historical Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: The bird told the demi-god to rub the stalks of water plants together. Who acts: bird. 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 69

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The bird told the demi-god to rub the stalks of water plants together.

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**Who acts:** bird · **What happens:** tell, rub · **To what, where:** demi god, stalks · **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 (bird), 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:pg66357:2:69
# text = The bird told the demi-god to rub the stalks of water plants together.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	bird	bird	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	told	tell	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
5	demi	demi	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	god	god	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
8	to	to	PART	TO	_	9	mark	_	_
9	rub	rub	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	acl	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	stalks	stalk	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	obj	_	_
12	of	of	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	water	water	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	compound	_	_
14	plants	plant	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	nmod	_	_
15	together	together	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	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 | **tell** *speech: assert* | past | the bird |  | the demi god |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent god=Recipient |
| 2 | **rub** | to-infinitive | the bird *not said here* | the stalks of water plants |  |  |  | together *property* | vn spray-9.7-1 «NP V NP.theme»: agent=Agent stalk=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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