---
title: I suppose I ought to eat or drink something or other; but the great… — Alice's Adventures in Wonderland · tree and pragmatics
description: I suppose I ought to eat or drink something or other; but the great question is, what?” Who acts: I. A sentence of «Alice's Adventures in Wonderland» by Lewis Carroll, Chapter IV. The Rabbit Sends in a Little Bill, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Chapter IV. The Rabbit Sends in a Little Bill, sentence 120

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I suppose I ought to eat or drink something or other; but the great question is, what?”

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**Who acts:** I · **What happens:** suppose, eat, drink, be · **To what, where:** something, great question

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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 (I), 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:pg11:5:120
# text = I suppose I ought to eat or drink something or other; but the great question is, what?”
1	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	suppose	suppose	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	ought	ought	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	2	ccomp	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
6	eat	eat	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	xcomp	_	_
7	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
8	drink	drink	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	conj	_	_
9	something	something	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	8	obj	_	_
10	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
11	other	other	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	16	punct	_	_
13	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
15	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	amod	_	_
16	question	question	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	parataxis	_	_
17	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	16	cop	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
19	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	16	appos	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	19	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	16	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **suppose** | present | I |  |  |  |  |  | vn consider-29.9-2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **eat** | to-infinitive | I *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **drink** | infinitive | I *not said here* | something |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent something=Patient |
| 4 | **is a** | present |  | the great question |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

<!-- .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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