---
title: “But I’m _not_ a serpent, I tell you!” said Alice. — Alice's Adventures in Wonderland · tree and pragmatics
description: “But I’m _not_ a serpent, I tell you!” said Alice. Who acts: Alice. 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.
---

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# Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Chapter V. Advice from a Caterpillar, sentence 95

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“But I’m \_not\_ a serpent, I tell you!” said Alice.

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**Who acts:** Alice · **What happens:** be, tell, say · **To what, where:** serpent, you · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (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:pg11:6:95
# text = “But I’m _not_ a serpent, I tell you!” said Alice.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	16	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
3	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	’m	be	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	12	advcl	_	_
5	_	_	PUNCT	NFP	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	9	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	_	_	PUNCT	NFP	_	9	punct	_	_
8	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	serpent	serpent	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
11	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
12	tell	tell	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	16	ccomp	_	_
13	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	12	iobj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	12	punct	_	_
16	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
17	Alice	Alice	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	16	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	16	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** *in a quote* | present | Alice | a serpent |  |  |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **tell** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | present | Alice |  | you |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent you=Recipient |
| 3 | **say** *speech: express* | past | Alice |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |

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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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