---
title: Will you ask the merciful Buddha what my after-life is to be like?” — Gleanings from Chinese folklore · tree and pragmatics
description: Will you ask the merciful Buddha what my after-life is to be like?” Who acts: you. A sentence of «Gleanings from Chinese folklore» by Nellie Naomi Russell, T’ang Sung’s Journey to Get the Buddhist Classics, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Gleanings from Chinese folklore, T’ang Sung’s Journey to Get the Buddhist Classics, sentence 68

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Will you ask the merciful Buddha what my after-life is to be like?”

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**Who acts:** you · **What happens:** ask · **To what, where:** merciful Buddha

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This is a sentence of «Gleanings from Chinese folklore» by Nellie Naomi Russell, T’ang Sung’s Journey to Get the Buddhist Classics. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you), 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:pg75089:16:68
# text = Will you ask the merciful Buddha what my after-life is to be like?”
1	Will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
2	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	ask	ask	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	merciful	merciful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	Buddha	Buddha	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
7	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	6	nmod	_	_
8	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	11	nmod:poss	_	_
9	after	after	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	life	life	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nsubj	_	_
12	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	15	cop	_	_
13	to	to	PART	TO	_	15	mark	_	_
14	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	cop	_	_
15	like	like	ADP	IN	_	7	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **ask** *speech: ask* | future | you |  | the merciful Buddha |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent buddha=Recipient |

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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:** «Gleanings from Chinese folklore» by Nellie Naomi Russell, Project Gutenberg book 75089 (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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