---
title: But I did not speak, because at that time I didn’t know what a mouth… — The Wonderful Wizard of Oz · tree and pragmatics
description: But I did not speak, because at that time I didn’t know what a mouth was for. Who acts: I. 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 38

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But I did not speak, because at that time I didn’t know what a mouth was for.

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**Who acts:** I · **What happens:** not speak, not know · **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 (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:pg55:6:38
# text = But I did not speak, because at that time I didn’t know what a mouth was for.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
3	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	5	advmod	_	_
5	speak	speak	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
7	because	because	SCONJ	IN	_	14	mark	_	_
8	at	at	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	that	that	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	10	det	_	_
10	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	_
11	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
12	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	14	advmod	_	_
14	know	know	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	conj	_	_
15	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	14	obj	_	_
16	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	mouth	mouth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nsubj	_	_
18	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	19	cop	_	_
19	for	for	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **speak** *speech: other* | past · do-support | I |  |  |  |  |  | vn talk-37.5 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **not** **know** | past · do-support | I |  |  |  | time |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Experiencer what=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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