---
title: They belonged to a high chief family and appeared to have assumed au… — Hawaiian Historical Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: They belonged to a high chief family and appeared to have assumed authority without opposition. Who acts: followers. A sentence of «Hawaiian Historical Legends» by W. D. Westervelt, Paao From Samoa, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Hawaiian Historical Legends, Paao From Samoa, sentence 152

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They belonged to a high chief family and appeared to have assumed authority without opposition.

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**Who acts:** followers · **What happens:** belong, appear, have, assume · **To what, where:** assumed authority

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This is a sentence of «Hawaiian Historical Legends» by W. D. Westervelt, Paao From Samoa. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (followers), 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:pg66357:8:152
# text = They belonged to a high chief family and appeared to have assumed authority without opposition.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	belonged	belong	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	to	to	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
5	high	high	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
6	chief	chief	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	family	family	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
9	appeared	appear	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
10	to	to	PART	TO	_	11	mark	_	_
11	have	have	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	xcomp	_	_
12	assumed	assume	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	13	amod	_	_
13	authority	authority	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	_
14	without	without	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	opposition	opposition	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **belong** | past | followers *= follower* |  |  |  |  | to a high chief family | vn attend-107.4-2 «NP V PP»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **appear** | past | followers *= follower* *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn seem-109-1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Theme clause=Attribute |
| 3 | **have** | to-infinitive | followers *= follower* *not said here* | assumed authority |  |  |  | without opposition | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent authority=Patient |
| 4 | **assume** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn adopt-93.1 «NP V NP»: 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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