---
title: “Oh, there’s no use in talking to him,” said Alice desperately: “he’… — Alice's Adventures in Wonderland · tree and pragmatics
description: “Oh, there’s no use in talking to him,” said Alice desperately: “he’s perfectly idiotic!” Who acts: use, Alice, dreadful. 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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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg11/7/33/)

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# Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Chapter VI. Pig and Pepper, sentence 33

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“Oh, there’s no use in talking to him,” said Alice desperately: “he’s perfectly idiotic!”

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**Who acts:** use, Alice, dreadful · **What happens:** talk, say, be · **To what, where:** dreadful · **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 (use, Alice, dreadful), 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:pg11:7:33
# text = “Oh, there’s no use in talking to him,” said Alice desperately: “he’s perfectly idiotic!”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	14	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Oh	oh	INTJ	UH	_	5	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
4	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	5	expl	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	’s	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	14	ccomp	_	_
6	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	7	det	_	_
7	use	use	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	_
8	in	in	SCONJ	IN	_	9	mark	_	_
9	talking	talk	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	7	acl	_	_
10	to	to	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
11	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
14	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
15	Alice	Alice	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	14	nsubj	_	_
16	desperately	desperately	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	22	punct	_	_
18	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	22	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	22	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	’s	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	22	cop	_	_
21	perfectly	perfectly	ADV	RB	_	22	advmod	_	_
22	idiotic	idiotic	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	22	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	22	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **talk** *in a quote* | gerund | no use *not said here* |  | dreadful |  |  |  | vn talk-37.5 «NP V PP.co-agent»: agent=Agent to he=Co-Agent |
| 2 | **say** *speech: express* | past | Alice |  |  |  |  | desperately *property* | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **is** *in a quote* | present | dreadful |  |  |  |  | idiotic, perfectly *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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