---
title: It was really a ball of cotton, but when oil was poured upon it the… — The Wonderful Wizard of Oz · tree and pragmatics
description: It was really a ball of cotton, but when oil was poured upon it the ball burned fiercely. Who acts: Ball. 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 96

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It was really a ball of cotton, but when oil was poured upon it the ball burned fiercely.

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**Who acts:** Ball · **What happens:** be, pour, burn · **To what, where:** ball, oil

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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 (Ball), 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:pg55:17:96
# text = It was really a ball of cotton, but when oil was poured upon it the ball burned fiercely.
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
3	really	really	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	ball	ball	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
6	of	of	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	cotton	cotton	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
9	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
10	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	13	advmod	_	_
11	oil	oil	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj:pass	_	_
12	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	aux:pass	_	_
13	poured	pour	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	5	parataxis	_	_
14	upon	upon	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	obl	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	ball	ball	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nsubj	_	_
18	burned	burn	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	parataxis	_	_
19	fiercely	fiercely	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | Ball | a ball |  |  |  | of cotton | tree rules |
| 2 | **pour** | past · passive |  | oil |  |  |  | upon Ball | vn preparing-26.3-2 «NP V NP»: subject=Patient |
| 3 | **burn** | past | the ball |  |  |  |  | fiercely *property* | vn light\_emission-43.1 «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.

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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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