---
title: “I am—I certainly am,” answered the little man sorrowfully; “but it… — The Wonderful Wizard of Oz · tree and pragmatics
description: “I am—I certainly am,” answered the little man sorrowfully; “but it was the only thing I could do. Who acts: little man, 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.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg55/17/98/)

<!-- 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 XV. The Discovery of Oz, the T…](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg55/17/) / 98

# The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Chapter XV. The Discovery of Oz, the Terrible, sentence 98

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
“I am—I certainly am,” answered the little man sorrowfully; “but it was the only thing I could do.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** little man, Ball · **What happens:** answer, be, do · **To what, where:** only thing · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (little man, Ball), 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:pg55:17:98
# text = “I am—I certainly am,” answered the little man sorrowfully; “but it was the only thing I could do.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	am	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	10	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	—	-	PUNCT	:	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
6	certainly	certainly	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
7	am	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
10	answered	answer	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
12	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
13	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	_
14	sorrowfully	sorrowfully	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	10	punct	_	_
16	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
18	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	22	nsubj	_	_
19	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	22	cop	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
21	only	only	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	22	amod	_	_
22	thing	thing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	conj	_	_
23	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	25	nsubj	_	_
24	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	25	aux	_	_
25	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	22	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **answer** *speech: assert* | past | the little man |  |  |  |  | sorrowfully *property* | vn reciprocate-112-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **is a** *in a quote* | past | Ball | the only thing |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **do** *in a quote* | could | the little man *= man* | the only thing *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent thing=Eventuality |

<!-- .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 97](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg55/17/97/)
- next →: [sentence 99](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg55/17/99/)
- ↑ back to [Chapter XV. The Discovery of Oz, the Terrible](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg55/17/)