---
title: “Would it be of any use, now,” thought Alice, “to speak to this mouse? — Alice's Adventures in Wonderland · tree and pragmatics
description: “Would it be of any use, now,” thought Alice, “to speak to this mouse? Who acts: way, use. 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 64

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“Would it be of any use, now,” thought Alice, “to speak to this mouse?

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**Who acts:** way, use · **What happens:** be, think, speak · **To what, where:** Alice · **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 (way, use), 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:pg11:3:64
# text = “Would it be of any use, now,” thought Alice, “to speak to this mouse?
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
3	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
4	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	cop	_	_
5	of	of	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	any	any	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	7	det	_	_
7	use	use	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
9	now	now	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	7	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	7	punct	_	_
12	thought	think	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
13	Alice	Alice	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
15	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	17	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	to	to	PART	TO	_	17	mark	_	_
17	speak	speak	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	conj	_	_
18	to	to	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
19	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	20	det	_	_
20	mouse	mouse	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** *in a quote* | would | way |  |  |  | now | of any use | tree rules |
| 2 | **think** *speech: other* | past | any use | Alice |  |  |  |  | vn wish-62 «NP V NP»: agent=Pivot alice=Theme |
| 3 | **speak** *speech: other* *in a quote* | to-infinitive | any use *not said here* |  |  |  |  | to this mouse | vn talk-37.5 «NP V PP.co-agent»: agent=Agent to mouse=Co-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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