---
title: The surf ceased rolling for a few moments in continuous waves. — Hawaiian Historical Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: The surf ceased rolling for a few moments in continuous waves. Who acts: surf. A sentence of «Hawaiian Historical Legends» by W. D. Westervelt, The Sons of Kii, 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/pg66357/7/144/)

<!-- 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 Sons of Kii](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66357/7/) / 144

# Hawaiian Historical Legends, The Sons of Kii, sentence 144

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
The surf ceased rolling for a few moments in continuous waves.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** surf · **What happens:** cease, roll

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (surf), 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:pg66357:7:144
# text = The surf ceased rolling for a few moments in continuous waves.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	surf	surf	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	ceased	cease	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	rolling	roll	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	3	xcomp	_	_
5	for	for	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
7	few	few	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	moments	moment	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obl	_	_
9	in	in	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	continuous	continuous	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	waves	wave	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **cease** | past | the surf |  |  |  |  |  | vn stop-55.4-1-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Affector clause=Eventuality |
| 2 | **roll** | gerund | the surf *not said here* |  |  |  | moment |  | vn run-51.3.2-2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

<!-- .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 143](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66357/7/143/)
- next →: [sentence 145](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66357/7/145/)
- ↑ back to [The Sons of Kii](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66357/7/)