---
title: But I spoke to him as he sat behind his screen and gave him your mes… — The Wonderful Wizard of Oz · tree and pragmatics
description: But I spoke to him as he sat behind his screen and gave him your message. Who acts: I, 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.
---

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# The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Chapter XI. The Wonderful City of Oz, sentence 22

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But I spoke to him as he sat behind his screen and gave him your message.

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**Who acts:** I, soldier · **What happens:** speak, sit, give · **To what, where:** soldier, screen, message · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (I, soldier), 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:pg55:13:22
# text = But I spoke to him as he sat behind his screen and gave him your message.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	3	cc	_	_
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	spoke	speak	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	to	to	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	obl	_	_
6	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	8	mark	_	_
7	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
8	sat	sit	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	advcl	_	_
9	behind	behind	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	11	nmod:poss	_	_
11	screen	screen	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
13	gave	give	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	conj	_	_
14	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	iobj	_	_
15	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	16	nmod:poss	_	_
16	message	message	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	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 | **speak** *speech: other* | past | I |  | soldier |  |  |  | vn talk-37.5 «NP V PP.co-agent»: agent=Agent to he=Co-Agent |
| 2 | **sit** | past | soldier |  |  | soldier's screen |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent behind screen=Location |
| 3 | **give** | past | soldier *not said here* | your message | soldier |  |  |  | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent he=Recipient message=Theme |

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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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