Hawaiian Historical Legends, King Kahahana, About 1773, sentence 33

It is not difficult to imagine the barbaric splendour of the royal canoes and their occupants as they crossed the outer coral reefs and drew near to the white sands of the most famous beach in Hawaiian history.

Who acts: canoes · What happens: not be, imagine, cross, draw · To what, where: barbaric splendour, outer coral reefs, white sands

This is a sentence of «Hawaiian Historical Legends» by W. D. Westervelt, King Kahahana, About 1773. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (canoes), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

Mova's own parse. This tree may be wrong.

The tree

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	It	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	4 difficult	expl
2	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	4 difficult	cop
3	not	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	4 difficult	advmod
4	difficult	difficult	ADJ	Degree=Pos	root	root
5	to	to	PART	_	6 imagine	mark
6	imagine	imagine	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	4 difficult	csubj
7	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	9 splendour	det
8	barbaric	barbaric	ADJ	Degree=Pos	9 splendour	amod
9	splendour	splendour	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 imagine	obj
10	of	of	ADP	_	13 canoes	case
11	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	13 canoes	det
12	royal	royal	ADJ	Degree=Pos	13 canoes	amod
13	canoes	canoe	NOUN	Number=Plur	9 splendour	nmod
14	and	and	CCONJ	_	16 occupants	cc
15	their	their	PRON	Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	16 occupants	nmod:poss
16	occupants	occupant	NOUN	Number=Plur	13 canoes	conj
17	as	as	SCONJ	_	19 crossed	mark
18	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	19 crossed	nsubj
19	crossed	cross	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	6 imagine	advcl
20	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	23 reefs	det
21	outer	outer	ADJ	Degree=Pos	23 reefs	amod
22	coral	coral	NOUN	_	23 reefs	compound
23	reefs	reef	NOUN	Number=Plur	19 crossed	obj
24	and	and	CCONJ	_	25 drew	cc
25	drew	draw	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	19 crossed	conj
26	near	near	ADV	_	25 drew	advmod
27	to	to	ADP	_	30 sands	case
28	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	30 sands	det
29	white	white	ADJ	Degree=Pos	30 sands	amod
30	sands	sand	NOUN	Number=Plur	25 drew	obl
31	of	of	ADP	_	35 beach	case
32	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	35 beach	det
33	most	most	ADV	Degree=Sup	34 famous	advmod
34	famous	famous	ADJ	Degree=Pos	35 beach	amod
35	beach	beach	NOUN	Number=Sing	30 sands	nmod
36	in	in	ADP	_	38 history	case
37	Hawaiian	Hawaiian	PROPN	Number=Sing	38 history	compound
38	history	history	NOUN	Number=Sing	35 beach	nmod
39	.	.	PUNCT	_	4 difficult	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	other	roles by
1	not is	present				difficult property	tree rules
2	imagine	to-infinitive		the barbaric splendour of the royal canoes and canoes's occupants			vn wish-62 «NP V NP»: agent=Pivot splendour=Theme
3	cross	past	canoes = canoe	the outer coral reefs			vn crane-40.3.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent reef=Patient
4	draw	past	canoes = canoe not said here		the white sands of the famous beach in Hawaiian history	near property	vn carry-11.4 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent to sand=Destination

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.

Text: «Hawaiian Historical Legends» by W. D. Westervelt, Project Gutenberg book 66357 (public domain in the USA). Tree: Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. Frames: Mova's frames reader (prag), the chapter read in order.

This page in Markdown → https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66357/13/33/

🌲 Hawaiian Historical Legends, King Kahahana, About 1773, sentence 33

The tree

Pragmatics

Hawaiian Historical Legends, King Kahahana, About 1773, sentence 33