---
title: It loved to build on lofty hills, where the soil was soft enough to… — Maori folk-tales of the Port Hills, Canterbury,… · tree and pragmatics
description: It loved to build on lofty hills, where the soil was soft enough to enable it to make its burrows. Who acts: muttonbird, soil. A sentence of «Maori folk-tales of the Port Hills, Canterbury, New Zealand» by James Cowan, The Little People of the Mist., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of ev
---

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# Maori folk-tales of the Port Hills, Canterbury, New Zealand, The Little People of the Mist., sentence 52

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It loved to build on lofty hills, where the soil was soft enough to enable it to make its burrows.

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**Who acts:** muttonbird, soil · **What happens:** love, build, be, enable, make · **To what, where:** lofty hills, muttonbird, burrows

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This is a sentence of «Maori folk-tales of the Port Hills, Canterbury, New Zealand» by James Cowan, The Little People of the Mist.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (muttonbird, soil), 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:pg73766:14:52
# text = It loved to build on lofty hills, where the soil was soft enough to enable it to make its burrows.
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	loved	love	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	to	to	PART	TO	_	4	mark	_	_
4	build	build	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	xcomp	_	_
5	on	on	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	lofty	lofty	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	hills	hill	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
9	where	where	ADV	WRB	PronType=Rel	13	advmod	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	soil	soil	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	_
12	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	cop	_	_
13	soft	soft	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	conj	_	_
14	enough	enough	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	_
15	to	to	PART	TO	_	16	mark	_	_
16	enable	enable	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	advcl	_	_
17	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	obj	_	_
18	to	to	PART	TO	_	19	mark	_	_
19	make	make	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	16	xcomp	_	_
20	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	21	nmod:poss	_	_
21	burrows	burrow	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	19	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **love** | past | muttonbird |  |  |  |  |  | vn admire-31.2-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 2 | **build** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | muttonbird *not said here* |  |  | lofty hills |  |  | vn base-97.1 «NP V NP PP.source»: agent=Agent on hill=Source |
| 3 | **is** | past | the soil |  |  |  |  | enough, soft *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **enable** | to-infinitive | the soil *not said here* | muttonbird |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 5 | **make** | to-infinitive | muttonbird *not said here* | muttonbird's burrows |  |  |  |  | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset burrow=Product |

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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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