---
title: “What size do you want to be?” it asked. — Alice's Adventures in Wonderland · tree and pragmatics
description: “What size do you want to be?” it asked. Who acts: size, silence. A sentence of «Alice's Adventures in Wonderland» by Lewis Carroll, Chapter V. Advice from a Caterpillar, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg11/6/50/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Alice's Adventures in Wonderland](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg11/) / [Chapter V. Advice from a Caterpillar](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg11/6/) / 50

# Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Chapter V. Advice from a Caterpillar, sentence 50

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
“What size do you want to be?” it asked.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** size, silence · **What happens:** want, be, ask · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Alice's Adventures in Wonderland» by Lewis Carroll, Chapter V. Advice from a Caterpillar. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (size, silence), 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:pg11:6:50
# text = “What size do you want to be?” it asked.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	What	what	DET	WDT	PronType=Int	3	det	_	_
3	size	size	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
4	do	do	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
5	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
6	want	want	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	ccomp	_	_
7	to	to	PART	TO	_	8	mark	_	_
8	be	be	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
11	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
12	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **want** *in a quote* | present · do-support | what size |  |  |  |  |  | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Pivot clause=Theme |
| 2 | **be** *not said to happen, in a quote* | to-infinitive | what size *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past | silence |  |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V how 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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 49](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg11/6/49/)
- next →: [sentence 51](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg11/6/51/)
- ↑ back to [Chapter V. Advice from a Caterpillar](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg11/6/)