---
title: “Call the first witness,” said the King; and the White Rabbit blew t… — Alice's Adventures in Wonderland · tree and pragmatics
description: “Call the first witness,” said the King; and the White Rabbit blew three blasts on the trumpet, and called out, “First witness!” Who acts: King, White Rabbit. A sentence of «Alice's Adventures in Wonderland» by Lewis Carroll, Chapter XI. Who Stole the Tarts?, with its dependency tree and the pragmat
---

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# Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Chapter XI. Who Stole the Tarts?, sentence 28

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“Call the first witness,” said the King; and the White Rabbit blew three blasts on the trumpet, and called out, “First witness!”

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**Who acts:** King, White Rabbit · **What happens:** call, say, blow, call out · **To what, where:** first witness, three blasts, trumpet · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Alice's Adventures in Wonderland» by Lewis Carroll, Chapter XI. Who Stole the Tarts?. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (King, White Rabbit), 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:pg11:12:28
# text = “Call the first witness,” said the King; and the White Rabbit blew three blasts on the trumpet, and called out, “First witness!”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Call	call	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	ccomp	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
4	first	first	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos|NumForm=Word|NumType=Ord	5	amod	_	_
5	witness	witness	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
8	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	King	King	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	16	punct	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
14	White	white	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
15	Rabbit	Rabbit	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	16	nsubj	_	_
16	blew	blow	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	conj	_	_
17	three	three	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	18	nummod	_	_
18	blasts	blast	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	obj	_	_
19	on	on	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	trumpet	trumpet	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	24	punct	_	_
23	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	24	cc	_	_
24	called	call	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	8	conj	_	_
25	out	out	ADP	RP	_	24	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	29	punct	_	_
27	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	29	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	First	first	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos|NumForm=Word|NumType=Ord	29	amod	_	_
29	witness	witness	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	29	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
31	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	29	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **call** *in a quote* | infinitive |  | the first witness |  |  |  |  | vn initiate\_communication-37.4.2-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent witness=Recipient |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the King |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **blow** | past | the White Rabbit | three blasts |  | the trumpet |  |  | vn split-23.2 «NP V NP apart»: agent=Agent blast=Patient |
| 4 | **call out** *speech: assert* | participle | the King *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn initiate\_communication-37.4.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

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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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