---
title: Do cats eat bats?” and sometimes, “Do bats eat cats?” for, you see,… — Alice's Adventures in Wonderland · tree and pragmatics
description: Do cats eat bats?” and sometimes, “Do bats eat cats?” for, you see, as she couldn’t answer either question, it didn’t much matter which way she put it. Who acts: cats, bats, you, bat. A sentence of «Alice's Adventures in Wonderland» by Lewis Carroll, Chapter I. Down the Rabbit-Hole, with its depende
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg11/2/41/)

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# Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Chapter I. Down the Rabbit-Hole, sentence 41

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Do cats eat bats?” and sometimes, “Do bats eat cats?” for, you see, as she couldn’t answer either question, it didn’t much matter which way she put it.

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**Who acts:** cats, bats, you, bat · **What happens:** eat, see, not answer, put · **To what, where:** bats, cats, question, cat · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Alice's Adventures in Wonderland» by Lewis Carroll, Chapter I. Down the Rabbit-Hole. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (cats, bats, you, bat), 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:pg11:2:41
# text = Do cats eat bats?” and sometimes, “Do bats eat cats?” for, you see, as she couldn’t answer either question, it didn’t much matter which way she put it.
1	Do	do	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
2	cats	cat	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	nsubj	_	_
3	eat	eat	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
4	bats	bat	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
8	sometimes	sometimes	ADV	RB	PronType=Ind	13	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
10	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	Do	do	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	aux	_	_
12	bats	bat	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	nsubj	_	_
13	eat	eat	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	conj	_	_
14	cats	cat	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	13	punct	_	_
17	for	for	ADP	IN	_	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
19	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
20	see	see	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	26	punct	_	_
22	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	26	mark	_	_
23	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	26	nsubj	_	_
24	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	26	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	26	advmod	_	_
26	answer	answer	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	20	conj	_	_
27	either	either	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	28	det	_	_
28	question	question	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	26	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	34	punct	_	_
30	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	34	nsubj	_	_
31	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	34	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
32	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	33	advmod	_	_
33	much	much	ADV	RB	_	34	advmod	_	_
34	matter	mat	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	26	parataxis	_	_
35	which	which	DET	WDT	PronType=Int	36	det	_	_
36	way	way	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	34	obl:unmarked	_	_
37	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	38	nsubj	_	_
38	put	put	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	36	acl:relcl	_	_
39	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	38	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
40	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **eat** | present · do-support | cats | bats |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **eat** | infinitive · do-support | bats | cats |  |  |  | sometimes *property* | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent cat=Patient |
| 3 | **see** *in a quote* | present | you |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |
| 4 | **not** **answer** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | could | bat | either question |  |  |  |  | vn reciprocate-112-1 «NP V PP»: agent=Agent question=Eventuality |
| 5 | **put** *in a quote* | past | bat | cat |  |  |  |  | vn invest-13.5.4-1 «NP V PP»: agent=Agent it=Goal |

<!-- .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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