---
title: The jailer’s voice trembled as he spoke. — Winning Buddha's smile · tree and pragmatics
description: The jailer’s voice trembled as he spoke. Who acts: Mandarin. A sentence of «Winning Buddha's smile», Winning Buddha’s Smile, part 9, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Winning Buddha's smile, Winning Buddha’s Smile, part 9, sentence 74

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The jailer’s voice trembled as he spoke.

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**Who acts:** Mandarin · **What happens:** tremble, speak · **To what, where:** voice · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (Mandarin), 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:pg78208:11:74
# text = The jailer’s voice trembled as he spoke.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	jailer	jailer	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	’s	's	PART	POS	_	2	case	_	_
4	voice	voice	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
5	trembled	tremble	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	4	acl	_	_
6	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	8	mark	_	_
7	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
8	spoke	speak	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **tremble** | participle |  | the jailer's voice *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn modes\_of\_being\_with\_motion-47.3 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **speak** *speech: other* | past | Mandarin |  |  |  |  |  | vn talk-37.5 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

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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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