---
title: Alice thought to herself, “I don’t see how he can _ever_ finish, if… — Alice's Adventures in Wonderland · tree and pragmatics
description: Alice thought to herself, “I don’t see how he can _ever_ finish, if he doesn’t begin.” Who acts: Alice, Pray. 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 83

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Alice thought to herself, “I don’t see how he can \_ever\_ finish, if he doesn’t begin.”

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**Who acts:** Alice, Pray · **What happens:** think, not see, \_, not begin · **To what, where:** Alice, finish · **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 (Alice, Pray), 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:pg11:10:83
# text = Alice thought to herself, “I don’t see how he can _ever_ finish, if he doesn’t begin.”
1	Alice	Alice	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	_
2	thought	think	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	to	to	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
4	herself	herself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
6	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
8	do	do	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	10	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	10	advmod	_	_
10	see	see	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	ccomp	_	_
11	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	14	advmod	_	_
12	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
13	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
14	_	_	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	ever	ever	ADV	RB	PronType=Ind	14	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	_	_	PUNCT	NFP	_	17	punct	_	_
17	finish	finish	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
19	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	23	mark	_	_
20	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	23	nsubj	_	_
21	does	do	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	23	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	23	advmod	_	_
23	begin	begin	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **think** *speech: other* | past | Alice |  | Alice |  |  |  | vn consider-29.9-2 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Theme |
| 2 | **not** **see** *in a quote* | present · do-support | Alice |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V how S\_INF»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 3 | **\_** *in a quote* | can | Pray | finish |  |  | ever |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **not** **begin** *a condition, not said to happen, in a quote* | present · do-support | Pray |  |  |  |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP.eventuality V»: agent=Eventuality |

<!-- .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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