---
title: They were eight in number, to represent the eight principal islands… — Hawaiian Historical Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: They were eight in number, to represent the eight principal islands of the group. Who acts: stripes. A sentence of «Hawaiian Historical Legends» by W. D. Westervelt, The Hawaiian Flag, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66357/22/42/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Hawaiian Historical Legends](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66357/) / [The Hawaiian Flag](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66357/22/) / 42

# Hawaiian Historical Legends, The Hawaiian Flag, sentence 42

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
They were eight in number, to represent the eight principal islands of the group.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** stripes · **What happens:** be, represent · **To what, where:** eight, number, eight principal islands

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Hawaiian Historical Legends» by W. D. Westervelt, The Hawaiian Flag. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (stripes), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**Mova's own parse.** This tree may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg66357:22:42
# text = They were eight in number, to represent the eight principal islands of the group.
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	eight	eight	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	0	root	_	_
4	in	in	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	number	number	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
7	to	to	PART	TO	_	8	mark	_	_
8	represent	represent	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	conj	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
10	eight	eight	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	12	nummod	_	_
11	principal	principal	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
12	islands	island	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	obj	_	_
13	of	of	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	group	group	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | stripes *= stripe* | eight |  | number |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **represent** | to-infinitive | stripes *= stripe* *not said here* | the eight principal islands of the group |  |  |  |  | vn representation-110.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Pivot island=Theme |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 41](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66357/22/41/)
- next →: [sentence 43](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66357/22/43/)
- ↑ back to [The Hawaiian Flag](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66357/22/)