---
title: The birds also thought they would have to offer their ruler as a wif… — Hawaiian Historical Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: The birds also thought they would have to offer their ruler as a wife to this wonderful stranger. Who acts: birds. 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.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66357/4/54/)

<!-- 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 Water of Life \[1\]](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66357/4/) / 54

# Hawaiian Historical Legends, The Water of Life \[1\], sentence 54

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
The birds also thought they would have to offer their ruler as a wife to this wonderful stranger.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** birds · **What happens:** think, have, offer · **To what, where:** ruler · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (birds), 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:pg66357:4:54
# text = The birds also thought they would have to offer their ruler as a wife to this wonderful stranger.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	birds	bird	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nsubj	_	_
3	also	also	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
4	thought	think	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
6	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
7	have	have	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	ccomp	_	_
8	to	to	PART	TO	_	9	mark	_	_
9	offer	offer	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	xcomp	_	_
10	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	11	nmod:poss	_	_
11	ruler	ruler	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	_
12	as	as	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	_
15	to	to	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
16	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	18	det	_	_
17	wonderful	wonderful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	amod	_	_
18	stranger	stranger	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **think** *speech: other* | past | the birds |  |  |  |  |  | vn consider-29.9-2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Theme |
| 2 | **have** | would | birds *= bird* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **offer** | to-infinitive | birds *= bird* *not said here* | birds's ruler |  |  |  | as a wife to this wonderful stranger | vn volunteer-95.4 «NP V NP PP»: agent=Agent ruler=Pivot as wife=Attribute |

<!-- .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 53](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66357/4/53/)
- next →: [sentence 55](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66357/4/55/)
- ↑ back to [The Water of Life \[1\]](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66357/4/)