---
title: “And who is Dinah, if I might venture to ask the question?” said the… — Alice's Adventures in Wonderland · tree and pragmatics
description: “And who is Dinah, if I might venture to ask the question?” said the Lory. Who acts: Dinah, Lory. 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 81

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
“And who is Dinah, if I might venture to ask the question?” said the Lory.

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**Who acts:** Dinah, Lory · **What happens:** be, venture, ask, say · **To what, where:** Dinah, question · **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 (Dinah, Lory), 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:pg11:4:81
# text = “And who is Dinah, if I might venture to ask the question?” said the Lory.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
3	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	5	nsubj	_	_
4	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
5	Dinah	Dinah	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
7	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	10	mark	_	_
8	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
9	might	might	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	10	aux	_	_
10	venture	venture	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	17	ccomp	_	_
11	to	to	PART	TO	_	12	mark	_	_
12	ask	ask	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	xcomp	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	question	question	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	10	punct	_	_
17	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
18	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	Lory	Lory	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	17	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	17	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** *in a quote* | present |  | Dinah |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **venture** *a condition, not said to happen, in a quote* | might | Dinah |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1 «NP V how S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **ask** *speech: ask* *in a quote* | to-infinitive | Dinah *not said here* | the question |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent question=Recipient |
| 4 | **say** *speech: ask* | past | the Lory |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=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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