---
title: Leaning on his cane, he started out slowly and feebly. — Winning Buddha's smile · tree and pragmatics
description: Leaning on his cane, he started out slowly and feebly. Who acts: sun. 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 76

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Leaning on his cane, he started out slowly and feebly.

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**Who acts:** sun · **What happens:** lean, start out · **To what, where:** cane

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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 (sun), 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:pg78208:4:77
# text = Leaning on his cane, he started out slowly and feebly.
1	Leaning	lean	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	7	advcl	_	_
2	on	on	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
3	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	4	nmod:poss	_	_
4	cane	cane	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	1	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	1	punct	_	_
6	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
7	started	start	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	out	out	ADP	RP	_	7	compound:prt	_	_
9	slowly	slowly	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
11	feebly	feebly	ADV	RB	_	9	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **lean** | gerund | sun *not said here* |  |  | sun's cane |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent on cane=Location |
| 2 | **start out** | past | sun |  |  |  |  | slowly *property* | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP.eventuality V»: agent=Eventuality |

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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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