---
title: “What did they live on?” said Alice, who always took a great interes… — Alice's Adventures in Wonderland · tree and pragmatics
description: “What did they live on?” said Alice, who always took a great interest in questions of eating and drinking. Who acts: names, Alice, questions. A sentence of «Alice's Adventures in Wonderland» by Lewis Carroll, Chapter VII. A Mad Tea-Party, 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/pg11/8/105/)

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# Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Chapter VII. A Mad Tea-Party, sentence 105

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“What did they live on?” said Alice, who always took a great interest in questions of eating and drinking.

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**Who acts:** names, Alice, questions · **What happens:** live on, say, take, eat, drink · **To what, where:** great interest, questions · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Alice's Adventures in Wonderland» by Lewis Carroll, Chapter VII. A Mad Tea-Party. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (names, Alice, questions), 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:pg11:8:105
# text = “What did they live on?” said Alice, who always took a great interest in questions of eating and drinking.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	What	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	5	obj	_	_
3	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	live	live	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	ccomp	_	_
6	on	on	ADP	IN	_	5	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
9	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
10	Alice	Alice	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
12	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	14	nsubj	_	_
13	always	always	ADV	RB	PronType=Tot	14	advmod	_	_
14	took	take	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	acl:relcl	_	_
15	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
16	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	amod	_	_
17	interest	interest	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obj	_	_
18	in	in	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
19	questions	question	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	nmod	_	_
20	of	of	SCONJ	IN	_	21	mark	_	_
21	eating	eat	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	19	acl	_	_
22	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	23	cc	_	_
23	drinking	drink	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	21	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **live on** *in a quote* | past · do-support | names *= name* |  |  |  |  |  | vn lodge-46 «NP V ADV»: agent=Theme what=Location |
| 2 | **say** *speech: ask* | past | Alice |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **take** | past | Alice | a great interest |  | questions |  | always *property* | vn fit-54.3 «NP V NP PP.location»: agent=Agent interest=Value in question=Location |
| 4 | **eat** | gerund | questions *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 5 | **drink** | gerund | questions *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .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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