---
title: The poor little thing sobbed again (or grunted, it was impossible to… — Alice's Adventures in Wonderland · tree and pragmatics
description: The poor little thing sobbed again (or grunted, it was impossible to say which), and they went on for some while in silence. Who acts: things. 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 86

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The poor little thing sobbed again (or grunted, it was impossible to say which), and they went on for some while in silence.

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**Who acts:** things · **What happens:** sob, grunt, be, say, go on · **To what, where:** poor little thing · **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 (things), 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:pg11:7:86
# text = The poor little thing sobbed again (or grunted, it was impossible to say which), and they went on for some while in silence.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
2	poor	poor	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
3	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	thing	thing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
5	sobbed	sob	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	4	acl	_	_
6	again	again	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
7	(	(	PUNCT	-LRB-	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
9	grunted	grunt	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	5	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
11	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	expl	_	_
12	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	cop	_	_
13	impossible	impossible	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	conj	_	_
14	to	to	PART	TO	_	15	mark	_	_
15	say	say	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	csubj	_	_
16	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	15	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	)	)	PUNCT	-RRB-	_	16	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
19	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
20	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	nsubj	_	_
21	went	go	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	conj	_	_
22	on	on	ADV	RB	_	21	advmod	_	_
23	for	for	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
24	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	25	det	_	_
25	while	while	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	obl	_	_
26	in	in	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
27	silence	silence	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sob** | participle |  | the poor little thing *not said here* |  |  | again |  | vn nonverbal\_expression-40.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **grunt** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn animal\_sounds-38 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **is** | past |  |  |  |  |  | impossible *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **say** *speech: assert* | to-infinitive |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent which=Topic |
| 5 | **go on** | past | things *= thing* |  |  |  | while |  | vn function-105.2.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

<!-- .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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