---
title: Death appeared degrading and an insult to the dignity of man. — Hawaiian Historical Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: Death appeared degrading and an insult to the dignity of man. Who acts: Death. A sentence of «Hawaiian Historical Legends» by W. D. Westervelt, Maui Seeking Immortality, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Hawaiian Historical Legends, Maui Seeking Immortality, sentence 18

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Death appeared degrading and an insult to the dignity of man.

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**Who acts:** Death · **What happens:** appear, degrade

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This is a sentence of «Hawaiian Historical Legends» by W. D. Westervelt, Maui Seeking Immortality. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Death), 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:pg66357:3:18
# text = Death appeared degrading and an insult to the dignity of man.
1	Death	Death	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	_
2	appeared	appear	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	degrading	degrade	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	2	xcomp	_	_
4	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
5	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	insult	insult	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	conj	_	_
7	to	to	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	dignity	dignity	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	_
10	of	of	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
11	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **appear** | past | Death |  |  |  |  |  | vn seem-109-1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Theme clause=Attribute |
| 2 | **degrade** | gerund | Death *not said here* |  |  |  |  | to the dignity of man; a insult *conj* | vn other\_cos-45.4 «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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