---
title: Ah, these insects are happier than we mortals.” — Winning Buddha's smile · tree and pragmatics
description: Ah, these insects are happier than we mortals.” Who acts: insects. 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 83

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Ah, these insects are happier than we mortals.”

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**Who acts:** insects · **What happens:** be

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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 (insects), 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:pg78208:9:83
# text = Ah, these insects are happier than we mortals.”
1	Ah	ah	INTJ	UH	_	6	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	1	punct	_	_
3	these	this	DET	DT	Number=Plur|PronType=Dem	4	det	_	_
4	insects	insect	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	nsubj	_	_
5	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
6	happier	happy	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	0	root	_	_
7	than	than	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
9	mortals	mortal	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | present | this insects |  |  |  |  | than mortals  we; happy *property* | 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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