---
title: “Somebody said,” Alice whispered, “that it’s done by everybody mindi… — Alice's Adventures in Wonderland · tree and pragmatics
description: “Somebody said,” Alice whispered, “that it’s done by everybody minding their own business!” Who acts: Somebody, Alice, everybody. A sentence of «Alice's Adventures in Wonderland» by Lewis Carroll, Chapter IX. The Mock Turtle’s Story, 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/pg11/10/17/)

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# Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Chapter IX. The Mock Turtle’s Story, sentence 17

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“Somebody said,” Alice whispered, “that it’s done by everybody minding their own business!”

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**Who acts:** Somebody, Alice, everybody · **What happens:** say, whisper, do, mind · **To what, where:** world, own business · **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 (Somebody, Alice, everybody), 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:pg11:10:17
# text = “Somebody said,” Alice whispered, “that it’s done by everybody minding their own business!”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Somebody	somebody	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	3	nsubj	_	_
3	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
6	Alice	Alice	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	_
7	whispered	whisper	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
9	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	13	mark	_	_
11	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj:pass	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	’s	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	13	aux:pass	_	_
13	done	do	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	7	ccomp	_	_
14	by	by	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	everybody	everybody	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Tot	13	obl:agent	_	_
16	minding	mind	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	15	acl	_	_
17	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	19	nmod:poss	_	_
18	own	own	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	amod	_	_
19	business	business	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | past | Somebody |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **whisper** *speech: express* | past | Alice |  |  |  |  |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **do** *in a quote* | present · passive | everybody | world |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent subject=Eventuality |
| 4 | **mind** *in a quote* | gerund |  | children's own business |  |  |  |  | vn caring-75.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent business=Theme |

<!-- .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:** «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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