---
title: “She made a sign to me,” he pondered, “but what meaning does this si… — Winning Buddha's smile · tree and pragmatics
description: “She made a sign to me,” he pondered, “but what meaning does this sign have?” Who acts: girl, San. 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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# Winning Buddha's smile, Winning Buddha’s Smile, part 5, sentence 20

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“She made a sign to me,” he pondered, “but what meaning does this sign have?”

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**Who acts:** girl, San · **What happens:** make, ponder, have · **To what, where:** sign, young girl · **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 (girl, San), 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:pg78208:7:20
# text = “She made a sign to me,” he pondered, “but what meaning does this sign have?”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	She	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	made	make	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	advcl	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	sign	sign	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
6	to	to	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
10	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
11	pondered	ponder	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
13	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	15	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
15	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	20	obj	_	_
16	meaning	meaning	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nsubj	_	_
17	does	do	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	20	aux	_	_
18	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	19	det	_	_
19	sign	sign	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obj	_	_
20	have	have	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	20	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	20	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **make** *in a quote* | past | girl | a sign | the young girl *= girl* |  |  |  | vn build-26.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent sign=Product |
| 2 | **ponder** | past | San |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **have** *in a quote* | present · do-support | San *not said here* | this sign |  |  |  | what  meaning *obj* | tree rules |

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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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