---
title: Said the mouse to the cur, ‘Such a trial, dear sir, With no jury or… — Alice's Adventures in Wonderland · tree and pragmatics
description: Said the mouse to the cur, ‘Such a trial, dear sir, With no jury or judge, would be wasting our breath.’ Who acts: mouse, jury. 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 59

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Said the mouse to the cur, ‘Such a trial, dear sir, With no jury or judge, would be wasting our breath.’

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**Who acts:** mouse, jury · **What happens:** say, waste · **To what, where:** cur, breath · **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 (mouse, jury), 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:pg11:4:59
# text = Said the mouse to the cur, ‘Such a trial, dear sir, With no jury or judge, would be wasting our breath.’
1	Said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	mouse	mouse	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	1	nsubj	_	_
4	to	to	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	cur	cur	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	1	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
8	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	Such	such	DET	PDT	PronType=Ind	11	det:predet	_	_
10	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	trial	trial	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
13	dear	dear	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
14	sir	sir	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
16	With	with	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	18	det	_	_
18	jury	jury	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	1	parataxis	_	_
19	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
20	judge	judge	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	24	punct	_	_
22	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	24	aux	_	_
23	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	24	aux	_	_
24	wasting	waste	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	18	acl	_	_
25	our	our	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	26	nmod:poss	_	_
26	breath	breath	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	1	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	1	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the mouse |  | the cur and such trial and dear sir |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V PP.recipient S-Quote»: agent=Agent to cur=Recipient |
| 2 | **waste** | would · progressive | no jury or judge *not said here* | our breath |  |  |  |  | vn destroy-44 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent breath=Patient |

<!-- .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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