---
title: After a time she heard a little pattering of feet in the distance, a… — Alice's Adventures in Wonderland · tree and pragmatics
description: After a time she heard a little pattering of feet in the distance, and she hastily dried her eyes to see what was coming. Who acts: Alice. A sentence of «Alice's Adventures in Wonderland» by Lewis Carroll, Chapter II. The Pool of Tears, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Chapter II. The Pool of Tears, sentence 19

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After a time she heard a little pattering of feet in the distance, and she hastily dried her eyes to see what was coming.

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**Who acts:** Alice · **What happens:** hear, dry, see, come · **To what, where:** little pattering, eyes · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Alice's Adventures in Wonderland» by Lewis Carroll, Chapter II. The Pool of Tears. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Alice), 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:pg11:3:19
# text = After a time she heard a little pattering of feet in the distance, and she hastily dried her eyes to see what was coming.
1	After	after	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
2	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
4	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	heard	hear	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
7	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	pattering	pattering	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	_
9	of	of	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
10	feet	foot	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	nmod	_	_
11	in	in	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	distance	distance	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
16	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
17	hastily	hastily	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	_
18	dried	dry	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
19	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	20	nmod:poss	_	_
20	eyes	eye	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	18	obj	_	_
21	to	to	PART	TO	_	22	mark	_	_
22	see	see	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	18	advcl	_	_
23	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	25	nsubj	_	_
24	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	25	aux	_	_
25	coming	come	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	22	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **hear** | past | Alice | a little pattering of feet |  |  | time | in the distance | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V S»: agent=Experiencer pattering=Stimulus |
| 2 | **dry** | past | Alice | Alice's eyes |  |  |  | hastily *property* | vn other\_cos-45.4-1 «NP V NP ADJ»: agent=Patient eye=Result |
| 3 | **see** | to-infinitive | Alice *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V how S\_INF»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 4 | **come** | past · progressive |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

<!-- .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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