---
title: Toto only wagged his tail; for, strange to say, he could not speak. — The Wonderful Wizard of Oz · tree and pragmatics
description: Toto only wagged his tail; for, strange to say, he could not speak. Who acts: Toto. A sentence of «The Wonderful Wizard of Oz» by L. Frank Baum, Chapter X. The Guardian of the Gate, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Chapter X. The Guardian of the Gate, sentence 63

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Toto only wagged his tail; for, strange to say, he could not speak.

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**Who acts:** Toto · **What happens:** wag, say, not speak · **To what, where:** tail · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Wonderful Wizard of Oz» by L. Frank Baum, Chapter X. The Guardian of the Gate. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Toto), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Parsed by Mova, not checked by a teacher.** This tree is Mova's own parse (the `en` model, on the CPU, when the site is built); it may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg55:12:63
# text = Toto only wagged his tail; for, strange to say, he could not speak.
1	Toto	Toto	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
2	only	only	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
3	wagged	wag	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	5	nmod:poss	_	_
5	tail	tail	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	9	punct	_	_
7	for	for	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
9	strange	strange	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	conj	_	_
10	to	to	PART	TO	_	11	mark	_	_
11	say	say	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
13	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
14	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
15	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	16	advmod	_	_
16	speak	speak	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **wag** | past | Toto | Toto's tail |  |  |  |  | vn crane-40.3.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent tail=Patient |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | to-infinitive | Toto *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **not** **speak** *speech: other* | could | Toto |  |  |  |  |  | vn talk-37.5 «NP V»: agent=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:** «The Wonderful Wizard of Oz» by L. Frank Baum, Project Gutenberg book 55 (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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