---
title: There was a general clapping of hands at this: it was the first real… — Alice's Adventures in Wonderland · tree and pragmatics
description: There was a general clapping of hands at this: it was the first really clever thing the King had said that day. Who acts: general clapping, clapping, King. A sentence of «Alice's Adventures in Wonderland» by Lewis Carroll, Chapter XII. Alice’s Evidence, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg11/13/44/)

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# Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Chapter XII. Alice’s Evidence, sentence 44

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There was a general clapping of hands at this: it was the first really clever thing the King had said that day.

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**Who acts:** general clapping, clapping, King · **What happens:** be, say, clap · **To what, where:** first clever thing, hands · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Alice's Adventures in Wonderland» by Lewis Carroll, Chapter XII. Alice’s Evidence. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (general clapping, clapping, 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:pg11:13:44
# text = There was a general clapping of hands at this: it was the first really clever thing the King had said that day.
1	There	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	2	expl	_	_
2	was	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
4	general	general	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	clapping	clapping	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	_
6	of	of	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	hands	hand	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	nmod	_	_
8	at	at	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	this	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	7	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	17	punct	_	_
11	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
12	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	cop	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
14	first	first	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos|NumForm=Word|NumType=Ord	17	amod	_	_
15	really	really	ADV	RB	_	16	advmod	_	_
16	clever	clever	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	amod	_	_
17	thing	thing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	_
18	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	King	King	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	21	nsubj	_	_
20	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	21	aux	_	_
21	said	say	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	17	acl:relcl	_	_
22	that	that	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	23	det	_	_
23	day	day	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	obl:unmarked	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | past | a general clapping of hands at this |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **is a** | past | clapping | the first clever thing |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | past · perfect | the King | the first clever thing *not said here* |  |  | day |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent thing=Topic |
| 4 | **clap** |  |  | hands at this |  |  |  |  | nom clapping «communication transitive»: of=patient |

<!-- .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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