---
title: We shall be glad to serve you in any way in our power, but we cannot… — The Wonderful Wizard of Oz · tree and pragmatics
description: We shall be glad to serve you in any way in our power, but we cannot cross the desert. Who acts: We. A sentence of «The Wonderful Wizard of Oz» by L. Frank Baum, Chapter XVIII. Away to the South, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Chapter XVIII. Away to the South, sentence 36

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We shall be glad to serve you in any way in our power, but we cannot cross the desert.

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**Who acts:** We · **What happens:** be, serve, not cross · **To what, where:** you, way, desert

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This is a sentence of «The Wonderful Wizard of Oz» by L. Frank Baum, Chapter XVIII. Away to the South. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (We), 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:pg55:20:36
# text = We shall be glad to serve you in any way in our power, but we cannot cross the desert.
1	We	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	shall	shall	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
3	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	cop	_	_
4	glad	glad	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
6	serve	serve	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	advcl	_	_
7	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	6	obj	_	_
8	in	in	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	any	any	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	10	det	_	_
10	way	way	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	_
11	in	in	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	our	our	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	13	nmod:poss	_	_
13	power	power	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
15	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
16	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
17	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	19	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	19	advmod	_	_
19	cross	cross	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	conj	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	desert	desert	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | shall | We |  |  |  |  | glad *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **serve** | to-infinitive | We *not said here* | you |  | any way in our power |  |  | vn fit-54.3 «NP V NP PP.location»: agent=Agent you=Value in way=Location |
| 3 | **not** **cross** | can | we | the desert |  |  |  |  | vn crane-40.3.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent desert=Patient |

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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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