---
title: The King of Beasts shouldn’t be a coward,” said the Scarecrow. — The Wonderful Wizard of Oz · tree and pragmatics
description: The King of Beasts shouldn’t be a coward,” said the Scarecrow. Who acts: King. A sentence of «The Wonderful Wizard of Oz» by L. Frank Baum, Chapter VI. The Cowardly Lion, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Chapter VI. The Cowardly Lion, sentence 52

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The King of Beasts shouldn’t be a coward,” said the Scarecrow.

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**Who acts:** King · **What happens:** not be, say · **To what, where:** coward, Scarecrow · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Wonderful Wizard of Oz» by L. Frank Baum, Chapter VI. The Cowardly Lion. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (King), 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:pg55:8:52
# text = The King of Beasts shouldn’t be a coward,” said the Scarecrow.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	King	King	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	12	nsubj	_	_
3	of	of	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
4	Beasts	Beast	PROPN	NNPS	Number=Plur	2	nmod	_	_
5	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	9	advmod	_	_
7	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	cop	_	_
8	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	coward	coward	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
12	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	Scarecrow	scarecrow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **is a** | should |  | a coward |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | past | the King of Beasts | the Scarecrow |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent scarecrow=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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