---
title: They would tightly cover up the water if a white hand came down. — Hawaiian Historical Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: They would tightly cover up the water if a white hand came down. Who acts: hands, white hand. A sentence of «Hawaiian Historical Legends» by W. D. Westervelt, The Water of Life [1], with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Hawaiian Historical Legends, The Water of Life \[1\], sentence 153

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They would tightly cover up the water if a white hand came down.

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**Who acts:** hands, white hand · **What happens:** cover up, come down · **To what, where:** water

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This is a sentence of «Hawaiian Historical Legends» by W. D. Westervelt, The Water of Life \[1\]. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (hands, white hand), 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:pg66357:4:153
# text = They would tightly cover up the water if a white hand came down.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
3	tightly	tightly	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
4	cover	cover	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
5	up	up	ADP	RP	_	4	compound:prt	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	water	water	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	_
8	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	12	mark	_	_
9	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
10	white	white	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	hand	hand	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nsubj	_	_
12	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	advcl	_	_
13	down	down	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **cover up** | would | hands *= hand* | the water |  |  |  | tightly *property* | vn fill-9.8-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme water=Destination |
| 2 | **come down** *a condition, not said to happen* | past | a white hand |  |  |  |  | down *property* | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=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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