---
title: “Won’t you tell me a story, while we are resting?” asked the child. — The Wonderful Wizard of Oz · tree and pragmatics
description: “Won’t you tell me a story, while we are resting?” asked the child. Who acts: you, we, child. A sentence of «The Wonderful Wizard of Oz» by L. Frank Baum, Chapter IV. The Road Through the Forest, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg55/6/21/)

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# The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Chapter IV. The Road Through the Forest, sentence 21

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“Won’t you tell me a story, while we are resting?” asked the child.

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**Who acts:** you, we, child · **What happens:** tell, rest, ask · **To what, where:** story, child · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Wonderful Wizard of Oz» by L. Frank Baum, Chapter IV. The Road Through the Forest. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, we, child), 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:pg55:6:21
# text = “Won’t you tell me a story, while we are resting?” asked the child.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Wo	wo	INTJ	UH	_	5	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	2	advmod	_	_
4	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	tell	tell	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	iobj	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	story	story	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
10	while	while	SCONJ	IN	_	13	mark	_	_
11	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
12	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
13	resting	rest	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	16	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	13	punct	_	_
16	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	advcl	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	child	child	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **tell** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | present | you | a story | the child *= child* |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent i=Recipient story=Topic |
| 2 | **rest** *in a quote* | present · progressive | we |  |  |  |  |  | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past | the child |  |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |

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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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