---
title: “Reeling and Writhing, of course, to begin with,” the Mock Turtle re… — Alice's Adventures in Wonderland · tree and pragmatics
description: “Reeling and Writhing, of course, to begin with,” the Mock Turtle replied; “and then the different branches of Arithmetic—Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision.” Who acts: Reeling, Mock Turtle. A sentence of «Alice's Adventures in Wonderland» by Lewis Carroll, Chapter IX. The Mock Turtle
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg11/10/113/)

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# Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Chapter IX. The Mock Turtle’s Story, sentence 113

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“Reeling and Writhing, of course, to begin with,” the Mock Turtle replied; “and then the different branches of Arithmetic—Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision.”

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**Who acts:** Reeling, Mock Turtle · **What happens:** begin, reply · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Alice's Adventures in Wonderland» by Lewis Carroll, Chapter IX. The Mock Turtle’s Story. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Reeling, Mock Turtle), 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:pg11:10:113
# text = “Reeling and Writhing, of course, to begin with,” the Mock Turtle replied; “and then the different branches of Arithmetic—Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision.”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Reeling	reeling	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	_
3	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
4	Writhing	writhing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
6	of	of	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	course	course	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
9	to	to	PART	TO	_	10	mark	_	_
10	begin	begin	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	17	ccomp	_	_
11	with	with	ADP	IN	_	10	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	10	punct	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
15	Mock	Mock	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	16	compound	_	_
16	Turtle	Turtle	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	17	nsubj	_	_
17	replied	reply	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	24	punct	_	_
19	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	24	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	24	cc	_	_
21	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	24	advmod	_	_
22	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
23	different	different	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	24	amod	_	_
24	branches	branch	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	parataxis	_	_
25	of	of	ADP	IN	_	26	case	_	_
26	Arithmetic	Arithmetic	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	24	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	—	-	PUNCT	:	_	28	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	Ambition	ambition	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	30	punct	_	_
30	Distraction	distraction	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	28	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
31	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	32	punct	_	_
32	Uglification	uglification	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	28	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
33	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	35	punct	_	_
34	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	35	cc	_	_
35	Derision	derision	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	28	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
36	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	24	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
37	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	17	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **begin** *in a quote* | to-infinitive | Reeling and Writhing and course |  |  |  |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP.eventuality V»: agent=Eventuality |
| 2 | **reply** *speech: assert* | past | the Mock Turtle |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1 «NP V S-Quote»: agent=Agent clause=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:** «Alice's Adventures in Wonderland» by Lewis Carroll, Project Gutenberg book 11 (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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