---
title: If they say ‘Aloha’ it is all right. — Hawaiian Historical Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: If they say ‘Aloha’ it is all right. Who acts: messengers, Death. 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 63

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If they say ‘Aloha’ it is all right.

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**Who acts:** messengers, Death · **What happens:** say, be · **To what, where:** Aloha · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (messengers, 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:pg66357:4:63
# text = If they say ‘Aloha’ it is all right.
1	If	if	SCONJ	IN	_	3	mark	_	_
2	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	say	say	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	10	advcl	_	_
4	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	Aloha	Aloha	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
7	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
8	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	10	cop	_	_
9	all	all	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	_
10	right	right	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* *a condition, not said to happen* | present | messengers *= messenger* | Aloha |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent aloha=Topic |
| 2 | **is** | present | Death |  |  |  |  | all, right *property* | tree rules |

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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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