---
title: They were about to carry away several people who had died by the hig… — Winning Buddha's smile · tree and pragmatics
description: They were about to carry away several people who had died by the highway. Who acts: orders, several people. A sentence of «Winning Buddha's smile», Winning Buddha’s Smile, part 1, 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/pg78208/3/21/)

<!-- 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 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg78208/3/) / 21

# Winning Buddha's smile, Winning Buddha’s Smile, part 1, sentence 21

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
They were about to carry away several people who had died by the highway.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** orders, several people · **What happens:** carry away, die · **To what, where:** several people

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Winning Buddha's smile», Winning Buddha’s Smile, part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (orders, several people), 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:pg78208:3:21
# text = They were about to carry away several people who had died by the highway.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
2	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
3	about	about	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
4	to	to	PART	TO	_	5	mark	_	_
5	carry	carry	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
6	away	away	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
7	several	several	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	people	people	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	obj	_	_
9	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	11	nsubj	_	_
10	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
11	died	die	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	8	acl:relcl	_	_
12	by	by	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	highway	highway	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **carry away** | past | orders *= order* | several people |  |  |  | about, away *property* | vn carry-11.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent people=Theme |
| 2 | **die** | past · perfect | several people |  |  |  |  | by the highway | vn calibratable\_cos-45.6.1 «NP.attribute V»: agent=Attribute |

<!-- .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 20](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg78208/3/20/)
- next →: [sentence 22](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg78208/3/22/)
- ↑ back to [Winning Buddha’s Smile, part 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg78208/3/)