---
title: The poor little Lizard, Bill, was in the middle, being held up by tw… — Alice's Adventures in Wonderland · tree and pragmatics
description: The poor little Lizard, Bill, was in the middle, being held up by two guinea-pigs, who were giving it something out of a bottle. Who acts: poor little Lizard, two guinea pigs. A sentence of «Alice's Adventures in Wonderland» by Lewis Carroll, Chapter IV. The Rabbit Sends in a Little Bill, with its d
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg11/5/107/)

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# Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Chapter IV. The Rabbit Sends in a Little Bill, sentence 107

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
The poor little Lizard, Bill, was in the middle, being held up by two guinea-pigs, who were giving it something out of a bottle.

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**Who acts:** poor little Lizard, two guinea pigs · **What happens:** be, hold up, give · **To what, where:** middle, bottle

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Alice's Adventures in Wonderland» by Lewis Carroll, Chapter IV. The Rabbit Sends in a Little Bill. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (poor little Lizard, two guinea pigs), 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:pg11:5:107
# text = The poor little Lizard, Bill, was in the middle, being held up by two guinea-pigs, who were giving it something out of a bottle.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
2	poor	poor	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
3	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	Lizard	Lizard	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
6	Bill	Bill	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	4	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
8	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	cop	_	_
9	in	in	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	middle	middle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
13	being	be	AUX	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	14	aux:pass	_	_
14	held	hold	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	11	acl	_	_
15	up	up	ADP	RP	_	14	compound:prt	_	_
16	by	by	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
17	two	two	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	20	nummod	_	_
18	guinea	guinea	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	18	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	pigs	pig	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	obl:agent	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	24	punct	_	_
22	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	24	nsubj	_	_
23	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	24	aux	_	_
24	giving	give	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	20	acl	_	_
25	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	24	obj	_	_
26	something	something	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	24	obj	_	_
27	out	out	ADP	IN	_	30	case	_	_
28	of	of	ADP	IN	_	30	case	_	_
29	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	30	det	_	_
30	bottle	bottle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
31	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | the poor little Lizard and Bill |  |  | the middle |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **hold up** | gerund · passive | two guinea pigs | the middle *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn support-15.3-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Pivot |
| 3 | **give** | past · progressive | two guinea pigs | middle |  | a bottle |  |  | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent it=Recipient something=Theme |

<!-- .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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