---
title: The merchants knelt and began to pray. — Winning Buddha's smile · tree and pragmatics
description: The merchants knelt and began to pray. Who acts: merchants. A sentence of «Winning Buddha's smile», Winning Buddha’s Smile, part 6, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Winning Buddha's smile, Winning Buddha’s Smile, part 6, sentence 100

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The merchants knelt and began to pray.

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**Who acts:** merchants · **What happens:** kneel, begin, pray

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This is a sentence of «Winning Buddha's smile», Winning Buddha’s Smile, part 6. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (merchants), 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:pg78208:8:102
# text = The merchants knelt and began to pray.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	merchants	merchant	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	nsubj	_	_
3	knelt	kneel	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
5	began	begin	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
6	to	to	PART	TO	_	7	mark	_	_
7	pray	pray	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **kneel** | past | the merchants |  |  |  |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **begin** | past | the merchants *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 3 | **pray** | to-infinitive | the merchants *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn long-32.2 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Pivot |

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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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