---
title: His greatest happiness lay in alleviating the sorrows of others. — Winning Buddha's smile · tree and pragmatics
description: His greatest happiness lay in alleviating the sorrows of others. Who acts: greatest happiness, others. A sentence of «Winning Buddha's smile», Winning Buddha’s Smile, part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Winning Buddha's smile, Winning Buddha’s Smile, part 1, sentence 5

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His greatest happiness lay in alleviating the sorrows of others.

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**Who acts:** greatest happiness, others · **What happens:** lie, alleviate, sorrow · **To what, where:** sorrows

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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 (greatest happiness, others), 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:pg78208:3:5
# text = His greatest happiness lay in alleviating the sorrows of others.
1	His	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	3	nmod:poss	_	_
2	greatest	great	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	3	amod	_	_
3	happiness	happiness	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	lay	lie	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	in	in	SCONJ	IN	_	6	mark	_	_
6	alleviating	alleviate	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	4	advcl	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	sorrows	sorrow	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	obj	_	_
9	of	of	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
10	others	other	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **lie** | past | Yen's greatest happiness |  |  |  |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **alleviate** | gerund | Yen's greatest happiness *not said here* | the sorrows of others |  |  |  |  | vn remedy-45.7 «NP V NP.patient»: agent=Agent sorrow=Patient |
| 3 | **sorrow** |  | others |  |  |  |  |  | nom sorrow «feeling intransitive»: of=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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