---
title: “You’re a _very_ poor _speaker_,” said the King. — Alice's Adventures in Wonderland · tree and pragmatics
description: “You’re a _very_ poor _speaker_,” said the King. Who acts: You, King. A sentence of «Alice's Adventures in Wonderland» by Lewis Carroll, Chapter XI. Who Stole the Tarts?, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Chapter XI. Who Stole the Tarts?, sentence 77

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“You’re a \_very\_ poor \_speaker\_,” said the King.

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**Who acts:** You, King · **What happens:** be, say · **To what, where:** \_ · **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 (You, King), 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:pg11:12:77
# text = “You’re a _very_ poor _speaker_,” said the King.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	You	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	’re	be	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	14	ccomp	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	_	_	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	very	very	ADV	RB	_	8	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	_	_	PUNCT	NFP	_	8	punct	_	_
8	poor	poor	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	conj	_	_
9	_	_	PUNCT	NFP	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	speaker	speaker	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	appos	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	_	_	PUNCT	NFP	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
14	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	King	King	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	14	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	14	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **does** *in a quote* | present | You | a \_ |  |  |  |  | vn representation-110.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Pivot \_=Theme |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the King |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: 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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