---
title: ’Twas but a brief while and the orderly came to report to his master… — Winning Buddha's smile · tree and pragmatics
description: ’Twas but a brief while and the orderly came to report to his master that his commands had been carried out. Who acts: Twas, San. A sentence of «Winning Buddha's smile», Winning Buddha’s Smile, part 9, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg78208/11/142/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Winning Buddha's smile](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg78208/) / [Winning Buddha’s Smile, part 9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg78208/11/) / 142

# Winning Buddha's smile, Winning Buddha’s Smile, part 9, sentence 142

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
’Twas but a brief while and the orderly came to report to his master that his commands had been carried out.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Twas, San · **What happens:** come, report, carry out, command · **To what, where:** commands · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Winning Buddha's smile», Winning Buddha’s Smile, part 9. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Twas, San), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**Mova's own parse.** This tree may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg78208:11:144
# text = ’Twas but a brief while and the orderly came to report to his master that his commands had been carried out.
1	’	'	PUNCT	NFP	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Twas	twa	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	nsubj	_	_
3	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	brief	brief	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	while	while	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	conj	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	orderly	orderly	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	conj	_	_
10	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
11	to	to	PART	TO	_	12	mark	_	_
12	report	report	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	xcomp	_	_
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	master	master	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	_
16	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	21	mark	_	_
17	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	18	nmod:poss	_	_
18	commands	command	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	21	nsubj:pass	_	_
19	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	21	aux	_	_
20	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	21	aux:pass	_	_
21	carried	carry	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	12	advcl	_	_
22	out	out	ADP	RP	_	21	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come** | past | Twas but a brief while |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **report** | to-infinitive | Twas but a brief while *not said here* |  |  |  |  | to San's master | vn subordinate-95.2.1 «NP V PP.co-agent»: agent=Agent to master=Co-Agent |
| 3 | **carry out** | past · perfect · passive |  | San's commands |  |  |  |  | vn act-114 «NP V NP»: subject=Eventuality |
| 4 | **command** |  | San |  |  |  |  |  | nom command «communication transitive»: poss=agent |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 141](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg78208/11/141/)
- next →: [sentence 143](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg78208/11/143/)
- ↑ back to [Winning Buddha’s Smile, part 9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg78208/11/)