---
title: “Poor child,” she said, “what can I do with you? — Winning Buddha's smile · tree and pragmatics
description: “Poor child,” she said, “what can I do with you? Who acts: Poor child. A sentence of «Winning Buddha's smile», Winning Buddha’s Smile, part 3, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Winning Buddha's smile, Winning Buddha’s Smile, part 3, sentence 173

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“Poor child,” she said, “what can I do with you?

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**Who acts:** Poor child · **What happens:** say, do · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Winning Buddha's smile», Winning Buddha’s Smile, part 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Poor child), 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:pg78208:5:176
# text = “Poor child,” she said, “what can I do with you?
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Poor	poor	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	child	child	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
6	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
7	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
9	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	13	obj	_	_
11	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
12	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
13	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	ccomp	_	_
14	with	with	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: ask* | past | Poor child |  |  |  |  | woman *nsubj* | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **do** *in a quote* | can | Poor child *= child* |  |  |  |  | with you; what *obj* | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent what=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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