--- title: Alice in Wonderland, chapter V, part 2: The mushroom, the long neck and the Pigeon — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Alice in Wonderland, chapter V, part 2: The mushroom, the long neck and the Pigeon», a lesson of the books course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: The mushroom is perfectly round, so Alice cannot tell which side is which; she breaks off --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/10-alice-ch5-part2-the-pigeon/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Books](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/) / Alice in Wonderland, chapter V, part 2… # Alice in Wonderland, chapter V, part 2: The mushroom, the long neck and the Pigeon Lesson 10 of the books course of Mova's primary school: 21 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/books/10-alice-ch5-part2-the-pigeon/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/10-alice-ch5-part2-the-pigeon/0/) — The mushroom is perfectly round, so Alice cannot tell which side is which; she breaks off a bit from each side and nibbles the right-hand bit, and shrinks so fast that her chin hits her foot. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/10-alice-ch5-part2-the-pigeon/2/) — A Pigeon flies at her face screaming "Serpent!": she has spent weeks guarding her eggs from serpents, and now one seems to have come wriggling down from the sky. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/10-alice-ch5-part2-the-pigeon/3/) — Alice insists she is a little girl, but when she admits she has eaten eggs, the Pigeon decides that little girls must be a kind of serpent too. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/10-alice-ch5-part2-the-pigeon/4/) — Nibbling first one bit and then the other, Alice gets back to her normal height, then makes herself nine inches tall so as not to scare whoever lives in a tiny house nearby: half of her plan is done. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/10-alice-ch5-part2-the-pigeon/5/) — Alice looks at the mushroom and, "as it was perfectly round", finds it hard to work out which are its two sides. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/10-alice-ch5-part2-the-pigeon/6/) — She breaks off a bit of the edge with each hand and asks "And now which is which?" - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/10-alice-ch5-part2-the-pigeon/7/) — Nibbling the right-hand bit, she feels "a violent blow underneath her chin: it had struck her foot!", because she is shrinking so fast. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/10-alice-ch5-part2-the-pigeon/8/) — Squashed chin-to-foot, she just manages to swallow a morsel (a small bite) of the left-hand bit. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/10-alice-ch5-part2-the-pigeon/9/) — Her head is free but her shoulders are "nowhere to be found"; she sees "an immense length of neck" rising "like a stalk out of a sea of green leaves", which are really the tops of the trees. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/10-alice-ch5-part2-the-pigeon/10/) — Her neck bends "in any direction, like a serpent", and she curves it into "a graceful zigzag"; "serpent" is an old word for snake. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/10-alice-ch5-part2-the-pigeon/11/) — A Pigeon beats her with its wings, screaming "Serpent!"; it has tried "the roots of trees", "banks" and "hedges" to keep its eggs safe. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/10-alice-ch5-part2-the-pigeon/12/) — The Pigeon "haven't had a wink of sleep these three weeks", watching for serpents night and day while hatching its eggs. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/10-alice-ch5-part2-the-pigeon/13/) — It had taken "the highest tree in the wood", and now a serpent seemed to come "wriggling down from the sky". - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/10-alice-ch5-part2-the-pigeon/14/) — Alice says "I—I'm a little girl", "rather doubtfully", because she has changed so many times that day. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/10-alice-ch5-part2-the-pigeon/15/) — The Pigeon says "A likely story indeed!", which means: I don't believe you; it has seen many little girls, "but never one with such a neck as that!" - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/10-alice-ch5-part2-the-pigeon/16/) — Alice, "a very truthful child", admits she has tasted eggs, and the Pigeon says "if they do, why then they're a kind of serpent". - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/10-alice-ch5-part2-the-pigeon/17/) — The Pigeon adds "You're looking for eggs, I know that well enough; and what does it matter to me whether you're a little girl or a serpent?" - [18](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/10-alice-ch5-part2-the-pigeon/18/) — Alice tells the Pigeon she is not looking for eggs, and would not want its eggs anyway: "I don't like them raw."; the Pigeon says sulkily "Well, be off, then!", and Alice crouches among the trees, her neck getting tangled in the branches. - [19](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/10-alice-ch5-part2-the-pigeon/19/) — Nibbling one bit and then the other, she gets "down to her usual height", and says "there's half my plan done now!" - [20](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/10-alice-ch5-part2-the-pigeon/20/) — She finds a little house "about four feet high", and, so as not to "frighten them out of their wits", she nibbles the right-hand bit until she is nine inches high. - [21](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/10-alice-ch5-part2-the-pigeon/21/) — Old words in today's English: "a morsel" = a small bite, "indignantly" = crossly, because something seems unfair, "subdued" = quieter, "must needs" = just had to. - ← previous: [Alice in Wonderland, chapter V, part 1: Advice from a Caterpillar](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/9-alice-ch5-part1-advice-from-a-caterpillar/) - next →: [Alice in Wonderland, chapter VI, part 1: The footmen and the Duchess's kitchen](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/11-alice-ch6-part1-pig-and-pepper/) - ↑ back to [Books](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/)