---
title: But the Scarecrow said, “We cannot fly, that is certain. — The Wonderful Wizard of Oz · tree and pragmatics
description: But the Scarecrow said, “We cannot fly, that is certain. Who acts: Scarecrow, We, that. A sentence of «The Wonderful Wizard of Oz» by L. Frank Baum, Chapter VII. The Journey to the Great Oz, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg55/9/23/)

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# The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Chapter VII. The Journey to the Great Oz, sentence 23

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
But the Scarecrow said, “We cannot fly, that is certain.

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**Who acts:** Scarecrow, We, that · **What happens:** say, not fly, be · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Wonderful Wizard of Oz» by L. Frank Baum, Chapter VII. The Journey to the Great Oz. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Scarecrow, We, that), 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:pg55:9:23
# text = But the Scarecrow said, “We cannot fly, that is certain.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	Scarecrow	scarecrow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
6	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	We	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
8	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	10	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	10	advmod	_	_
10	fly	fly	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
12	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	14	nsubj	_	_
13	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	14	cop	_	_
14	certain	certain	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the Scarecrow |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **not** **fly** *in a quote* | can | We |  |  |  |  |  | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **is** *in a quote* | present | that |  |  |  |  | certain *property* | tree rules |

<!-- .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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