---
title: “To begin with,” said the Cat, “a dog’s not mad. — Alice's Adventures in Wonderland · tree and pragmatics
description: “To begin with,” said the Cat, “a dog’s not mad. Who acts: Cat, dog. A sentence of «Alice's Adventures in Wonderland» by Lewis Carroll, Chapter VI. Pig and Pepper, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Chapter VI. Pig and Pepper, sentence 113

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“To begin with,” said the Cat, “a dog’s not mad.

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**Who acts:** Cat, dog · **What happens:** begin, say, not be · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Alice's Adventures in Wonderland» by Lewis Carroll, Chapter VI. Pig and Pepper. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Cat, dog), 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:pg11:7:113
# text = “To begin with,” said the Cat, “a dog’s not mad.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	To	to	PART	TO	_	3	mark	_	_
3	begin	begin	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	ccomp	_	_
4	with	with	ADP	IN	_	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
7	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	Cat	cat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
11	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	16	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	dog	dog	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	’s	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	16	cop	_	_
15	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	16	advmod	_	_
16	mad	mad	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **begin** *in a quote* | to-infinitive |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP.eventuality V»: agent=Eventuality |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the Cat |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **not** **is** *in a quote* | present | a dog |  |  |  |  | mad *property* | tree rules |

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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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