---
title: “How queer it seems,” Alice said to herself, “to be going messages f… — Alice's Adventures in Wonderland · tree and pragmatics
description: “How queer it seems,” Alice said to herself, “to be going messages for a rabbit! Who acts: it, Alice. 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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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg11/5/17/)

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# Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Chapter IV. The Rabbit Sends in a Little Bill, sentence 17

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“How queer it seems,” Alice said to herself, “to be going messages for a rabbit!

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**Who acts:** it, Alice · **What happens:** queer, seem, say, go · **To what, where:** Alice, messages · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (it, Alice), 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:pg11:5:17
# text = “How queer it seems,” Alice said to herself, “to be going messages for a rabbit!
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	How	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	3	advmod	_	_
3	queer	queer	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	9	ccomp	_	_
4	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	seems	seem	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
8	Alice	Alice	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	_
9	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
10	to	to	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
11	herself	herself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
13	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	16	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	to	to	PART	TO	_	16	mark	_	_
15	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	16	aux	_	_
16	going	go	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	9	advcl	_	_
17	messages	message	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	obj	_	_
18	for	for	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
19	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	rabbit	rabbit	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **queer** *in a quote* | present |  |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **seem** *in a quote* | present | it |  |  |  |  |  | vn seem-109-1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **say** *speech: express* | past | Alice |  | Alice |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V PP.recipient S-Quote»: agent=Agent to herself=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 4 | **go** *in a quote* | to-infinitive · progressive | Alice *not said here* | messages |  |  |  | for a rabbit | vn meander-47.7 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location message=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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