---
title: “‘They aren’t straight,’” answered the other. — The Wonderful Wizard of Oz · tree and pragmatics
description: “‘They aren’t straight,’” answered the other. Who acts: ears, straight. 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.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg55/6/28/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Wonderful Wizard of Oz](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg55/) / [Chapter IV. The Road Through the Forest](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg55/6/) / 28

# The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Chapter IV. The Road Through the Forest, sentence 28

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
“‘They aren’t straight,’” answered the other.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** ears, straight · **What happens:** not be, answer · **To what, where:** other · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (ears, straight), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg55:6:28
# text = “‘They aren’t straight,’” answered the other.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
4	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	6	advmod	_	_
6	straight	straight	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
10	answered	answer	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	other	other	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **is** *in a quote* | present | ears *= ear* |  |  |  |  | straight *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **answer** *speech: assert* | past | straight | the other |  |  |  |  | vn reciprocate-112-1 «NP V PP»: agent=Agent other=Eventuality |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 27](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg55/6/27/)
- next →: [sentence 29](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg55/6/29/)
- ↑ back to [Chapter IV. The Road Through the Forest](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg55/6/)