---
title: “Sir, I know this man only through having heard tales of him.” — Winning Buddha's smile · tree and pragmatics
description: “Sir, I know this man only through having heard tales of him.” Who acts: San, man. A sentence of «Winning Buddha's smile», Winning Buddha’s Smile, part 4, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Winning Buddha's smile, Winning Buddha’s Smile, part 4, sentence 105

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“Sir, I know this man only through having heard tales of him.”

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**Who acts:** San, man · **What happens:** know, hear, tell · **To what, where:** man, Sir · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Winning Buddha's smile», Winning Buddha’s Smile, part 4. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (San, man), 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:pg78208:6:107
# text = “Sir, I know this man only through having heard tales of him.”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Sir	sir	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
4	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	know	know	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	_
6	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	7	det	_	_
7	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	_
8	only	only	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	_
9	through	through	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	having	have	AUX	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	11	aux	_	_
11	heard	hear	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	12	amod	_	_
12	tales	tale	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	obj	_	_
13	of	of	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
14	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **know** *in a quote* | present | San | this man |  |  |  | heard tales of man *obj* | tree rules |
| 2 | **hear** *in a quote* | gerund · perfect |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V PP.stimulus»: agent=Experiencer |
| 4 | **tell** *in a quote* |  | man |  |  |  |  |  | nom tale «communication 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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