---
title: Thinking to avoid this danger, the merchants had recourse to a very… — Winning Buddha's smile · tree and pragmatics
description: Thinking to avoid this danger, the merchants had recourse to a very ancient and very barbarous practice. Who acts: merchants. A sentence of «Winning Buddha's smile», Winning Buddha’s Smile, part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Winning Buddha's smile, Winning Buddha’s Smile, part 2, sentence 151

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Thinking to avoid this danger, the merchants had recourse to a very ancient and very barbarous practice.

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**Who acts:** merchants · **What happens:** think, avoid, have · **To what, where:** danger, recourse

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This is a sentence of «Winning Buddha's smile», Winning Buddha’s Smile, part 2. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (merchants), 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:pg78208:4:152
# text = Thinking to avoid this danger, the merchants had recourse to a very ancient and very barbarous practice.
1	Thinking	think	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	9	advcl	_	_
2	to	to	PART	TO	_	3	mark	_	_
3	avoid	avoid	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	1	advcl	_	_
4	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	5	det	_	_
5	danger	danger	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	1	punct	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	merchants	merchant	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	nsubj	_	_
9	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
10	recourse	recourse	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	_
11	to	to	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
12	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
13	very	very	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	_
14	ancient	ancient	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	amod	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
16	very	very	ADV	RB	_	17	advmod	_	_
17	barbarous	barbarous	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	conj	_	_
18	practice	practice	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **think** *speech: other* | gerund | the merchants *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn focus-87.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **avoid** | to-infinitive | the merchants *not said here* | this danger |  |  |  |  | vn avoid-52 «NP V NP.location»: agent=Agent danger=Location |
| 3 | **have** | past | the merchants | recourse |  |  |  | to a ancient practice | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent recourse=Patient |

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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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