---
title: “Can’t you give me brains?” asked the Scarecrow. — The Wonderful Wizard of Oz · tree and pragmatics
description: “Can’t you give me brains?” asked the Scarecrow. Who acts: you, Scarecrow. A sentence of «The Wonderful Wizard of Oz» by L. Frank Baum, Chapter XV. The Discovery of Oz, the Terrible, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Chapter XV. The Discovery of Oz, the Terrible, sentence 131

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
“Can’t you give me brains?” asked the Scarecrow.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** you, Scarecrow · **What happens:** not give, ask · **To what, where:** brains, Scarecrow · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Wonderful Wizard of Oz» by L. Frank Baum, Chapter XV. The Discovery of Oz, the Terrible. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, Scarecrow), 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:pg55:17:131
# text = “Can’t you give me brains?” asked the Scarecrow.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Ca	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	5	advmod	_	_
4	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	give	give	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	10	parataxis	_	_
6	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	iobj	_	_
7	brains	brain	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
10	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	Scarecrow	scarecrow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **give** *in a quote* | can | you | brains | the Scarecrow *= scarecrow* |  |  |  | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent i=Recipient brain=Theme |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past | the Scarecrow |  |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |

<!-- .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.

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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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