---
title: He could scarcely have chosen a spot more snug about these savage Po… — Maori folk-tales of the Port Hills, Canterbury,… · tree and pragmatics
description: He could scarcely have chosen a spot more snug about these savage Port Hills. Who acts: conquistador. A sentence of «Maori folk-tales of the Port Hills, Canterbury, New Zealand» by James Cowan, Rapaki: a Village By the Sea., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Maori folk-tales of the Port Hills, Canterbury, New Zealand, Rapaki: a Village By the Sea., sentence 56

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He could scarcely have chosen a spot more snug about these savage Port Hills.

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**Who acts:** conquistador · **What happens:** choose · **To what, where:** spot

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This is a sentence of «Maori folk-tales of the Port Hills, Canterbury, New Zealand» by James Cowan, Rapaki: a Village By the Sea.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (conquistador), 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:pg73766:12:56
# text = He could scarcely have chosen a spot more snug about these savage Port Hills.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
2	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
3	scarcely	scarcely	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
4	have	have	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	aux	_	_
5	chosen	choose	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	spot	spot	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	_
8	more	more	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	9	amod	_	_
9	snug	snug	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	conj	_	_
10	about	about	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
11	these	this	PRON	DT	Number=Plur|PronType=Dem	14	nsubj	_	_
12	savage	savage	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
13	Port	Port	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	14	compound	_	_
14	Hills	hill	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **choose** | could · perfect | conquistador | a spot |  |  |  | scarcely *property* | vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent spot=Theme |

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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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