---
title: The Chief of Police read the letter through with great astonishment. — Winning Buddha's smile · tree and pragmatics
description: The Chief of Police read the letter through with great astonishment. Who acts: Chief. 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 91

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The Chief of Police read the letter through with great astonishment.

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**Who acts:** Chief · **What happens:** read · **To what, where:** letter, great astonishment

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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 (Chief), 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:pg78208:3:91
# text = The Chief of Police read the letter through with great astonishment.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	Chief	Chief	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
3	of	of	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
4	Police	Police	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	2	nmod	_	_
5	read	read	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	letter	letter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	_
8	through	through	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
9	with	with	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	astonishment	astonishment	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **read** | past | the Chief of Police | the letter |  | great astonishment |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent letter=Topic |

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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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