---
title: Waitai had already explored the country, and was able to tell of its… — Maori folk-tales of the Port Hills, Canterbury,… · tree and pragmatics
description: Waitai had already explored the country, and was able to tell of its worth as a home for Ngai-Tahu. Who acts: Waitai. A sentence of «Maori folk-tales of the Port Hills, Canterbury, New Zealand» by James Cowan, “the Crest of the Rainbow.”, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Maori folk-tales of the Port Hills, Canterbury, New Zealand, “the Crest of the Rainbow.”, sentence 22

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Waitai had already explored the country, and was able to tell of its worth as a home for Ngai-Tahu.

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**Who acts:** Waitai · **What happens:** explore, be, tell · **To what, where:** country · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Maori folk-tales of the Port Hills, Canterbury, New Zealand» by James Cowan, “the Crest of the Rainbow.”. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Waitai), 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:pg73766:11:22
# text = Waitai had already explored the country, and was able to tell of its worth as a home for Ngai-Tahu.
1	Waitai	Waitai	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
2	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
3	already	already	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
4	explored	explore	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	country	country	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
9	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	cop	_	_
10	able	able	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	conj	_	_
11	to	to	PART	TO	_	12	mark	_	_
12	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	xcomp	_	_
13	of	of	SCONJ	IN	_	15	mark	_	_
14	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	15	nmod:poss	_	_
15	worth	worth	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	ccomp	_	_
16	as	as	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	home	home	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obl	_	_
19	for	for	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
20	Ngai	Ngai	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	18	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	22	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	Tahu	Tahu	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	20	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **explore** | past · perfect | Waitai | the country |  |  |  |  | vn investigate-35.4 «NP V NP.location»: agent=Agent country=Location |
| 2 | **is** | past | Waitai *not said here* |  |  |  |  | able *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **tell** *speech: assert* | to-infinitive | Waitai *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «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:** «Maori folk-tales of the Port Hills, Canterbury, New Zealand» by James Cowan, Project Gutenberg book 73766 (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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