---
title: They had to wait a long time before the soldier returned. — The Wonderful Wizard of Oz · tree and pragmatics
description: They had to wait a long time before the soldier returned. Who acts: strangers, soldier. A sentence of «The Wonderful Wizard of Oz» by L. Frank Baum, Chapter XI. The Wonderful City of Oz, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg55/13/18/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Wonderful Wizard of Oz](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg55/) / [Chapter XI. The Wonderful City of Oz](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg55/13/) / 18

# The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Chapter XI. The Wonderful City of Oz, sentence 18

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
They had to wait a long time before the soldier returned.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** strangers, soldier · **What happens:** have, wait, return

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Wonderful Wizard of Oz» by L. Frank Baum, Chapter XI. The Wonderful City of Oz. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (strangers, soldier), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg55:13:18
# text = They had to wait a long time before the soldier returned.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	to	to	PART	TO	_	4	mark	_	_
4	wait	wait	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	xcomp	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
6	long	long	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl:unmarked	_	_
8	before	before	SCONJ	IN	_	11	mark	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	soldier	soldier	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	_
11	returned	return	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** | past | strangers *= stranger* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **wait** | to-infinitive | strangers *= stranger* *not said here* |  |  |  | time |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **return** | past | the soldier |  |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg55/13/17/)
- next →: [sentence 19](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg55/13/19/)
- ↑ back to [Chapter XI. The Wonderful City of Oz](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg55/13/)