---
title: I can’t tell you just now what the moral of that is, but I shall rem… — Alice's Adventures in Wonderland · tree and pragmatics
description: I can’t tell you just now what the moral of that is, but I shall remember it in a bit.” Who acts: I. 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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# Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Chapter IX. The Mock Turtle’s Story, sentence 8

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I can’t tell you just now what the moral of that is, but I shall remember it in a bit.”

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**Who acts:** I · **What happens:** not tell, be, remember · **To what, where:** you, moral, bit · **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 (I), 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:pg11:10:8
# text = I can’t tell you just now what the moral of that is, but I shall remember it in a bit.”
1	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	ca	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	4	advmod	_	_
4	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
5	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	4	iobj	_	_
6	just	just	ADV	RB	_	8	advmod	_	_
7	now	now	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	8	advmod	_	_
8	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	4	ccomp	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	moral	moral	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	_
11	of	of	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	10	nmod	_	_
13	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	8	cop	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
15	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
16	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
17	shall	shall	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	18	aux	_	_
18	remember	remember	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	conj	_	_
19	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	obj	_	_
20	in	in	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
21	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	bit	bit	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **tell** *speech: assert* | can | I |  | you |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent you=Recipient |
| 2 | **is a** | present |  |  |  |  | now |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **remember** | shall | I | moral |  | a bit |  |  | vn characterize-29.2-1-1 «NP V NP S\_ING»: agent=Agent it=Theme |

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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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