---
title: May I in turn ask why you did not reply to my note? — Winning Buddha's smile · tree and pragmatics
description: May I in turn ask why you did not reply to my note? Who acts: I, you, my. 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 69

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May I in turn ask why you did not reply to my note?

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**Who acts:** I, you, my · **What happens:** ask, not reply, note · **To what, where:** turn · **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, you, my), 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:pg78208:7:69
# text = May I in turn ask why you did not reply to my note?
1	May	may	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
3	in	in	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
4	turn	turn	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
5	ask	ask	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	why	why	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	10	advmod	_	_
7	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
8	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	aux	_	_
9	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	10	advmod	_	_
10	reply	reply	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	ccomp	_	_
11	to	to	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	13	nmod:poss	_	_
13	note	note	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **ask** *speech: ask* | may | I |  |  | turn |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **not** **reply** *speech: assert* | past · do-support | you |  |  |  |  | to my note | vn respond-113 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent to note=Theme |
| 3 | **note** |  | my |  |  |  |  |  | nom note «communication transitive»: poss=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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