---
title: Before them was a great stretch of country having a floor as smooth… — The Wonderful Wizard of Oz · tree and pragmatics
description: Before them was a great stretch of country having a floor as smooth and shining and white as the bottom of a big platter. Who acts: brains, great stretch. A sentence of «The Wonderful Wizard of Oz» by L. Frank Baum, Chapter XX. The Dainty China Country, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of
---

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# The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Chapter XX. The Dainty China Country, sentence 17

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Before them was a great stretch of country having a floor as smooth and shining and white as the bottom of a big platter.

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**Who acts:** brains, great stretch · **What happens:** be, have, shine · **To what, where:** great stretch, floor

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This is a sentence of «The Wonderful Wizard of Oz» by L. Frank Baum, Chapter XX. The Dainty China Country. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (brains, great stretch), 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:pg55:22:17
# text = Before them was a great stretch of country having a floor as smooth and shining and white as the bottom of a big platter.
1	Before	before	SCONJ	IN	_	6	mark	_	_
2	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	stretch	stretch	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
7	of	of	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	country	country	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nmod	_	_
9	having	have	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	6	acl	_	_
10	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	floor	floor	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	_
12	as	as	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
13	smooth	smooth	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	obl	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
15	shining	shine	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	9	conj	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
17	white	white	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	conj	_	_
18	as	as	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	bottom	bottom	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obl	_	_
21	of	of	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
22	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
23	big	big	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	24	amod	_	_
24	platter	platter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | brains *= brain* | a great stretch |  |  |  | of country | tree rules |
| 2 | **have** | gerund | a great stretch *not said here* | a floor |  |  |  | as smooth | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent floor=Patient |
| 3 | **shine** | gerund | a great stretch *not said here* |  |  |  |  | as the bottom of a big platter | vn light\_emission-43.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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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