---
title: Whether he is a man or not I cannot tell, for I have never seen him.” — The Wonderful Wizard of Oz · tree and pragmatics
description: Whether he is a man or not I cannot tell, for I have never seen him.” Who acts: man, I. A sentence of «The Wonderful Wizard of Oz» by L. Frank Baum, “let Dorothy Go to the City of Emeralds”, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, “let Dorothy Go to the City of Emeralds”, sentence 9

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Whether he is a man or not I cannot tell, for I have never seen him.”

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**Who acts:** man, I · **What happens:** be, not tell, not see · **To what, where:** man · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Wonderful Wizard of Oz» by L. Frank Baum, “let Dorothy Go to the City of Emeralds”. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (man, I), 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:pg55:4:9
# text = Whether he is a man or not I cannot tell, for I have never seen him.”
1	Whether	whether	SCONJ	IN	_	5	mark	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
3	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	_
6	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
7	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	5	conj	_	_
8	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
9	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	11	advmod	_	_
11	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
13	for	for	SCONJ	IN	_	17	mark	_	_
14	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
15	have	have	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	_
16	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	17	advmod	_	_
17	seen	see	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	11	ccomp	_	_
18	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | present | man | a man |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **not** **tell** *speech: assert* | can | a man |  |  |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **not** **see** | present · perfect | I | man |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer he=Stimulus |

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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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