---
title: In a little while they saw men standing in the boat. — Hawaiian Historical Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: In a little while they saw men standing in the boat. Who acts: waves, men. 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 172

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In a little while they saw men standing in the boat.

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**Who acts:** waves, men · **What happens:** see, stand · **To what, where:** men, little, boat

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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 (waves, men), 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:pg66357:4:172
# text = In a little while they saw men standing in the boat.
1	In	in	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
2	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	obl	_	_
4	while	while	SCONJ	IN	_	6	mark	_	_
5	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
6	saw	see	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	men	man	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	obj	_	_
8	standing	stand	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	7	acl	_	_
9	in	in	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	boat	boat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **see** | past | waves *= wave* | men |  | a little |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer man=Stimulus |
| 2 | **stand** | gerund | men *not said here* |  |  | the boat |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent in boat=Location |

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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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