---
title: However, it was over at last, and they sat down again in a ring, and… — Alice's Adventures in Wonderland · tree and pragmatics
description: However, it was over at last, and they sat down again in a ring, and begged the Mouse to tell them something more. Who acts: back, birds. 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 ever
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg11/4/53/)

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# Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Chapter III. A Caucus-Race and a Long Tale, sentence 53

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
However, it was over at last, and they sat down again in a ring, and begged the Mouse to tell them something more.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** back, birds · **What happens:** be, sit down, beg, tell · **To what, where:** ring, Mouse, something, birds · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (back, birds), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg11:4:53
# text = However, it was over at last, and they sat down again in a ring, and begged the Mouse to tell them something more.
1	However	however	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	1	punct	_	_
3	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
4	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	cop	_	_
5	over	over	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
6	at	at	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	last	last	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
10	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
11	sat	sit	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	parataxis	_	_
12	down	down	ADP	RP	_	11	compound:prt	_	_
13	again	again	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	_
14	in	in	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	ring	ring	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
18	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
19	begged	beg	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	conj	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	Mouse	mouse	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obj	_	_
22	to	to	PART	TO	_	23	mark	_	_
23	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	19	advcl	_	_
24	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	23	iobj	_	_
25	something	something	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	23	obj	_	_
26	more	more	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	25	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | back |  |  |  |  | however, last, over *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **sit down** | past | birds *= bird* |  |  | a ring | again |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent in ring=Location |
| 3 | **beg** *speech: request* | past | birds *= bird* *not said here* |  | the Mouse |  |  |  | vn beg-58.2-1-1 «NP V NP PP.Topic»: agent=Agent mouse=Recipient |
| 4 | **tell** *speech: assert* | to-infinitive | birds *= bird* *not said here* | something | birds *= bird* |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent they=Recipient something=Topic |

<!-- .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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