---
title: The birds of fire are eating them up. — Hawaiian Legends of Volcanoes (mythology) · tree and pragmatics
description: The birds of fire are eating them up. Who acts: birds. A sentence of «Hawaiian Legends of Volcanoes (mythology)» by W. D. Westervelt, Hopoe, the Dancing Stone, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Hawaiian Legends of Volcanoes (mythology), Hopoe, the Dancing Stone, sentence 74

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The birds of fire are eating them up.

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**Who acts:** birds · **What happens:** eat up · **To what, where:** fires

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This is a sentence of «Hawaiian Legends of Volcanoes (mythology)» by W. D. Westervelt, Hopoe, the Dancing Stone. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (birds), 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:pg66516:15:74
# text = The birds of fire are eating them up.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	birds	bird	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	nsubj	_	_
3	of	of	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
4	fire	fire	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	nmod	_	_
5	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
6	eating	eat	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
7	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	obj	_	_
8	up	up	ADP	RP	_	6	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **eat up** | present · progressive | the birds of fire | fires *= fire* |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent they=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 Legends of Volcanoes (mythology)» by W. D. Westervelt, Project Gutenberg book 66516 (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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