---
title: There is a pretty Maori love-lament in which a girl compares her sor… — Maori folk-tales of the Port Hills, Canterbury,… · tree and pragmatics
description: There is a pretty Maori love-lament in which a girl compares her sorrowing self to this blossom of the flax: Who acts: pretty Maori love lament, girl. 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
---

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# Maori folk-tales of the Port Hills, Canterbury, New Zealand, “the Crest of the Rainbow.”, sentence 32

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There is a pretty Maori love-lament in which a girl compares her sorrowing self to this blossom of the flax:

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**Who acts:** pretty Maori love lament, girl · **What happens:** be, compare, sorrow · **To what, where:** lament, pretty Maori love lament, self

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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 (pretty Maori love lament, girl), 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:pg73766:11:32
# text = There is a pretty Maori love-lament in which a girl compares her sorrowing self to this blossom of the flax:
1	There	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	2	expl	_	_
2	is	be	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
4	pretty	pretty	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
5	Maori	Maori	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	8	compound	_	_
6	love	love	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	lament	lament	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	_
9	in	in	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
10	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	13	obl	_	_
11	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	girl	girl	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	_
13	compares	compare	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	8	parataxis	_	_
14	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	obj	_	_
15	sorrowing	sorrow	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	13	advcl	_	_
16	self	self	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obj	_	_
17	to	to	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
18	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	19	det	_	_
19	blossom	blossom	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obl	_	_
20	of	of	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
21	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	flax	flax	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | present | a pretty Maori love lament |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **compare** | present | a girl | lament |  | a pretty Maori love lament |  |  | vn amalgamate-22.2-2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent she=Patient |
| 3 | **sorrow** | gerund | a girl *not said here* | self |  |  |  | to this blossom of the flax | tree rules |

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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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