---
title: “It was much pleasanter at home,” thought poor Alice, “when one wasn… — Alice's Adventures in Wonderland · tree and pragmatics
description: “It was much pleasanter at home,” thought poor Alice, “when one wasn’t always growing larger and smaller, and being ordered about by mice and rabbits. Who acts: bottle, pleasanter, one, mice. A sentence of «Alice's Adventures in Wonderland» by Lewis Carroll, Chapter IV. The Rabbit Sends in a Little 
---

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# Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Chapter IV. The Rabbit Sends in a Little Bill, sentence 35

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
“It was much pleasanter at home,” thought poor Alice, “when one wasn’t always growing larger and smaller, and being ordered about by mice and rabbits.

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**Who acts:** bottle, pleasanter, one, mice · **What happens:** be, think, not grow, order about · **To what, where:** home, poor Alice · **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 (bottle, pleasanter, one, mice), 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:pg11:5:35
# text = “It was much pleasanter at home,” thought poor Alice, “when one wasn’t always growing larger and smaller, and being ordered about by mice and rabbits.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
4	much	much	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	pleasanter	pleasant	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	10	nsubj	_	_
6	at	at	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	home	home	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
10	thought	think	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
11	poor	poor	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
12	Alice	Alice	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
14	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	20	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	when	when	SCONJ	WRB	_	20	mark	_	_
16	one	one	PRON	PRP	Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
17	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	20	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	20	advmod	_	_
19	always	always	ADV	RB	PronType=Tot	20	advmod	_	_
20	growing	grow	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	10	conj	_	_
21	larger	large	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	20	xcomp	_	_
22	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	23	cc	_	_
23	smaller	small	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	21	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	27	punct	_	_
25	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	27	cc	_	_
26	being	be	AUX	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	27	aux:pass	_	_
27	ordered	order	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	10	parataxis	_	_
28	about	about	ADP	IN	_	27	obl	_	_
29	by	by	ADP	IN	_	30	case	_	_
30	mice	mouse	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	27	obl	_	_
31	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	32	cc	_	_
32	rabbits	rabbit	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	30	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
33	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** *in a quote* | past | bottle |  |  | home |  | pleasant *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **think** *speech: other* | past | pleasanter | poor Alice |  |  |  |  | vn consider-29.9-2 «NP V NP ADJ»: agent=Agent alice=Attribute clause=Theme |
| 3 | **not** **grow** *in a quote* | past · progressive | one |  |  |  |  | always, large *property* | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **order about** *in a quote* | gerund · passive | mice and rabbits |  |  |  |  |  | vn order-58.3-1 «NP V S»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .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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