---
title: “They would be just the thing to take a long walk in, for they could… — The Wonderful Wizard of Oz · tree and pragmatics
description: “They would be just the thing to take a long walk in, for they could not wear out.” Who acts: shoes. A sentence of «The Wonderful Wizard of Oz» by L. Frank Baum, Chapter III. How Dorothy Saved the Scarecrow, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Chapter III. How Dorothy Saved the Scarecrow, sentence 16

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“They would be just the thing to take a long walk in, for they could not wear out.”

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**Who acts:** shoes · **What happens:** be, take, not wear out · **To what, where:** thing, long walk

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This is a sentence of «The Wonderful Wizard of Oz» by L. Frank Baum, Chapter III. How Dorothy Saved the Scarecrow. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (shoes), 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:pg55:5:16
# text = “They would be just the thing to take a long walk in, for they could not wear out.”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
3	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
4	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	cop	_	_
5	just	just	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	thing	thing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
8	to	to	PART	TO	_	9	mark	_	_
9	take	take	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	acl	_	_
10	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
11	long	long	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
12	walk	walk	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	_
13	in	in	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
15	for	for	SCONJ	IN	_	19	mark	_	_
16	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
17	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	19	aux	_	_
18	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	19	advmod	_	_
19	wear	wear	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	conj	_	_
20	out	out	ADP	RP	_	19	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** *in a quote* | would | shoes *= shoe* | the thing |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **take** *in a quote* | to-infinitive |  | a long walk |  |  |  |  | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent walk=Theme |
| 3 | **not** **wear out** *in a quote* | could | shoes *= shoe* |  |  |  |  |  | vn wipe\_manner-10.4.1-1 «NP V PP-Conative»: agent=Agent |

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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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