---
title: “My life has been so short that I really know nothing whatever. — The Wonderful Wizard of Oz · tree and pragmatics
description: “My life has been so short that I really know nothing whatever. Who acts: life, 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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# The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Chapter IV. The Road Through the Forest, sentence 23

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“My life has been so short that I really know nothing whatever.

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**Who acts:** life, child · **What happens:** be, know · **To what, where:** nothing

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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 (life, 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:pg55:6:23
# text = “My life has been so short that I really know nothing whatever.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	My	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	3	nmod:poss	_	_
3	life	life	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	_
4	has	have	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
5	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	7	cop	_	_
6	so	so	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
7	short	short	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
8	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	11	mark	_	_
9	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
10	really	really	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	_
11	know	know	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	7	advcl	_	_
12	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	11	obj	_	_
13	whatever	whatever	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	12	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** *in a quote* | present · perfect | My life |  |  |  |  | short *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **know** *in a quote* | present | the child *= child* | nothing |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Experiencer nothing=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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