---
title: The chiefess had been a cannibal but at this time stopped eating men. — Hawaiian Historical Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: The chiefess had been a cannibal but at this time stopped eating men. Who acts: chiefess. 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 81

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The chiefess had been a cannibal but at this time stopped eating men.

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**Who acts:** chiefess · **What happens:** be, stop, eat · **To what, where:** cannibal, men

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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 (chiefess), 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:pg66357:4:81
# text = The chiefess had been a cannibal but at this time stopped eating men.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	chiefess	chiefess	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
3	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
4	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	6	cop	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	cannibal	cannibal	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
7	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
8	at	at	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	10	det	_	_
10	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	_
11	stopped	stop	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	conj	_	_
12	eating	eat	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	11	xcomp	_	_
13	men	man	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past · perfect | the chiefess | a cannibal |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **stop** | past | the chiefess *not said here* |  |  |  | time |  | vn stop-55.4-1-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Affector clause=Eventuality |
| 3 | **eat** | gerund | the chiefess *not said here* | men |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent man=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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