---
title: This was by no means an easy thing to do. — Hawaiian Historical Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: This was by no means an easy thing to do. Who acts: This. A sentence of «Hawaiian Historical Legends» by W. D. Westervelt, The Sons of Kii, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Hawaiian Historical Legends, The Sons of Kii, sentence 129

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This was by no means an easy thing to do.

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**Who acts:** This · **What happens:** be, do

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This is a sentence of «Hawaiian Historical Legends» by W. D. Westervelt, The Sons of Kii. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (This), 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:pg66357:7:129
# text = This was by no means an easy thing to do.
1	This	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	5	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
3	by	by	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
4	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	5	obl	_	_
5	means	mean	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
7	easy	easy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	thing	thing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	_
9	to	to	PART	TO	_	10	mark	_	_
10	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	acl	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | This |  |  |  |  | by no; a easy thing *obj*; mean *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **do** | to-infinitive | This *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

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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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