---
title: He sang of the boat building and the protecting care of the gods. — Hawaiian Historical Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: He sang of the boat building and the protecting care of the gods. Who acts: prisoner, gods. 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 21

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He sang of the boat building and the protecting care of the gods.

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**Who acts:** prisoner, gods · **What happens:** sing, protect, care

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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 (prisoner, gods), 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:pg66357:7:21
# text = He sang of the boat building and the protecting care of the gods.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	sang	sing	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	of	of	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	boat	boat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	compound	_	_
6	building	building	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
9	protecting	protect	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	10	amod	_	_
10	care	care	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	conj	_	_
11	of	of	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	gods	god	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sing** *speech: express* | past | prisoner |  |  |  |  | of the boat building and the protecting care of the gods | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP.location V PP.theme»: agent=Location |
| 2 | **protect** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn defend-72.3 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **care** |  | the gods |  |  |  |  |  | nom care «act intransitive»: of=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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