---
title: “I have been holding that axe in the air ever since I rusted, and I’… — The Wonderful Wizard of Oz · tree and pragmatics
description: “I have been holding that axe in the air ever since I rusted, and I’m glad to be able to put it down at last. Who acts: Scarecrow. A sentence of «The Wonderful Wizard of Oz» by L. Frank Baum, Chapter V. The Rescue of the Tin Woodman, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Chapter V. The Rescue of the Tin Woodman, sentence 34

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
“I have been holding that axe in the air ever since I rusted, and I’m glad to be able to put it down at last.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Scarecrow · **What happens:** hold, rust, be, put down · **To what, where:** axe, air, last

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This is a sentence of «The Wonderful Wizard of Oz» by L. Frank Baum, Chapter V. The Rescue of the Tin Woodman. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Scarecrow), 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:pg55:7:34
# text = “I have been holding that axe in the air ever since I rusted, and I’m glad to be able to put it down at last.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
3	have	have	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	5	aux	_	_
5	holding	hold	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	14	advcl	_	_
6	that	that	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	7	det	_	_
7	axe	axe	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	_
8	in	in	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	air	air	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
11	ever	ever	ADV	RB	PronType=Ind	14	advmod	_	_
12	since	since	SCONJ	IN	_	14	mark	_	_
13	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
14	rusted	rust	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
17	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	’m	be	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	14	conj	_	_
19	glad	glad	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	xcomp	_	_
20	to	to	PART	TO	_	22	mark	_	_
21	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	22	cop	_	_
22	able	able	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	advcl	_	_
23	to	to	PART	TO	_	24	mark	_	_
24	put	put	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	22	xcomp	_	_
25	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	24	obj	_	_
26	down	down	ADP	RP	_	24	compound:prt	_	_
27	at	at	ADP	IN	_	28	case	_	_
28	last	last	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	24	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	14	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **hold** *in a quote* | present · perfect · progressive | Scarecrow | that axe |  | the air |  |  | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP PP.location»: agent=Agent axe=Theme in air=Location |
| 2 | **rust** *in a quote* | past | Scarecrow |  |  |  | ever |  | vn entity\_specific\_cos-45.5 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient |
| 3 | **be** *in a quote* | present | Scarecrow |  |  |  |  | glad *property* | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **is** *in a quote* | to-infinitive | Scarecrow *not said here* |  |  |  |  | able *property* | tree rules |
| 5 | **put down** *in a quote* | to-infinitive | Scarecrow *not said here* | axe |  | last |  |  | vn put-9.1-2 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent it=Theme at last=Destination |

<!-- .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.

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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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