---
title: “The simplest thing would be to confer upon him the succession to hi… — Winning Buddha's smile · tree and pragmatics
description: “The simplest thing would be to confer upon him the succession to his father.” Who acts: simplest thing. A sentence of «Winning Buddha's smile», Winning Buddha’s Smile, part 8, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg78208/10/14/)

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# Winning Buddha's smile, Winning Buddha’s Smile, part 8, sentence 14

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“The simplest thing would be to confer upon him the succession to his father.”

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**Who acts:** simplest thing · **What happens:** be

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This is a sentence of «Winning Buddha's smile», Winning Buddha’s Smile, part 8. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (simplest thing), 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:pg78208:10:14
# text = “The simplest thing would be to confer upon him the succession to his father.”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
3	simplest	simple	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	4	amod	_	_
4	thing	thing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	_
5	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	8	aux	_	_
6	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	cop	_	_
7	to	to	PART	TO	_	8	mark	_	_
8	confer	confer	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
9	upon	upon	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
10	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	obl	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	succession	succession	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	_
13	to	to	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	15	nmod:poss	_	_
15	father	father	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** *in a quote* | would | the simplest thing |  |  |  |  | upon King; to King's father; the succession *obj*; confer *property* | 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:** «Winning Buddha's smile», Project Gutenberg book 78208 (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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