---
title: “Why,” said the Dodo, “the best way to explain it is to do it.” — Alice's Adventures in Wonderland · tree and pragmatics
description: “Why,” said the Dodo, “the best way to explain it is to do it.” Who acts: Dodo, best way. A sentence of «Alice's Adventures in Wonderland» by Lewis Carroll, Chapter III. A Caucus-Race and a Long Tale, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Chapter III. A Caucus-Race and a Long Tale, sentence 33

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“Why,” said the Dodo, “the best way to explain it is to do it.”

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**Who acts:** Dodo, best way · **What happens:** say, explain, be · **To what, where:** way · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Alice's Adventures in Wonderland» by Lewis Carroll, Chapter III. A Caucus-Race and a Long Tale. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Dodo, best way), 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:pg11:4:33
# text = “Why,” said the Dodo, “the best way to explain it is to do it.”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Why	why	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	5	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
5	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	Dodo	Dodo	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
9	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	18	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
11	best	good	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	12	amod	_	_
12	way	way	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nsubj	_	_
13	to	to	PART	TO	_	14	mark	_	_
14	explain	explain	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	acl	_	_
15	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	obj	_	_
16	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	18	cop	_	_
17	to	to	PART	TO	_	18	mark	_	_
18	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	ccomp	_	_
19	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	18	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	18	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the Dodo |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **explain** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | to-infinitive | the best way *not said here* | way |  |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Topic |
| 3 | **is** *in a quote* | present | the best way |  |  |  |  | do *property* | tree rules |

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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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