---
title: It was smooth, like the surface of a dish, and higher than their hea… — The Wonderful Wizard of Oz · tree and pragmatics
description: It was smooth, like the surface of a dish, and higher than their heads. Who acts: wall. A sentence of «The Wonderful Wizard of Oz» by L. Frank Baum, Chapter XIX. Attacked by the Fighting Trees, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Chapter XIX. Attacked by the Fighting Trees, sentence 50

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It was smooth, like the surface of a dish, and higher than their heads.

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**Who acts:** wall · **What happens:** be

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This is a sentence of «The Wonderful Wizard of Oz» by L. Frank Baum, Chapter XIX. Attacked by the Fighting Trees. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (wall), 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:pg55:21:50
# text = It was smooth, like the surface of a dish, and higher than their heads.
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	cop	_	_
3	smooth	smooth	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
5	like	like	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	surface	surface	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	_
8	of	of	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	dish	dish	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
13	higher	high	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	3	parataxis	_	_
14	than	than	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	16	nmod:poss	_	_
16	heads	head	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	obl	_	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 | **is** | past | wall |  |  |  |  | like the surface of a dish; smooth *property* | tree rules |

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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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