---
title: I have but a few words to say. — Winning Buddha's smile · tree and pragmatics
description: I have but a few words to say. Who acts: I, few words. A sentence of «Winning Buddha's smile», Winning Buddha’s Smile, part 5, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg78208/7/11/)

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# Winning Buddha's smile, Winning Buddha’s Smile, part 5, sentence 11

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I have but a few words to say.

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**Who acts:** I, few words · **What happens:** have, say · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Winning Buddha's smile», Winning Buddha’s Smile, part 5. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I, few words), 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:pg78208:7:11
# text = I have but a few words to say.
1	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	have	have	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	few	few	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	words	word	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	nsubj	_	_
7	to	to	PART	TO	_	8	mark	_	_
8	say	say	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** | present | I |  |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | to-infinitive | a few words |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=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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