---
title: He did not dare question them too closely. — Winning Buddha's smile · tree and pragmatics
description: He did not dare question them too closely. Who acts: dream. A sentence of «Winning Buddha's smile», Winning Buddha’s Smile, part 7, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Winning Buddha's smile, Winning Buddha’s Smile, part 7, sentence 174

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He did not dare question them too closely.

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**Who acts:** dream · **What happens:** not dare, not question · **To what, where:** things

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This is a sentence of «Winning Buddha's smile», Winning Buddha’s Smile, part 7. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (dream), 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:pg78208:9:176
# text = He did not dare question them too closely.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
3	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	4	advmod	_	_
4	dare	dare	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
5	question	question	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	xcomp	_	_
6	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	obj	_	_
7	too	too	ADV	RB	_	8	advmod	_	_
8	closely	closely	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **dare** | past · do-support | dream |  |  |  |  |  | vn urge-58.1-1 «NP V NP S\_ING»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **not** **question** *speech: other* | infinitive | dream *not said here* | things *= thing* |  |  |  | closely *property* | vn interrogate-37.1.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent they=Recipient |

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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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