---
title: “You mean you can’t take _less_,” said the Hatter: “it’s very easy t… — Alice's Adventures in Wonderland · tree and pragmatics
description: “You mean you can’t take _less_,” said the Hatter: “it’s very easy to take _more_ than nothing.” Who acts: You, Hatter. 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/pg11/8/112/)

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# Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Chapter VII. A Mad Tea-Party, sentence 112

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“You mean you can’t take \_less\_,” said the Hatter: “it’s very easy to take \_more\_ than nothing.”

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**Who acts:** You, Hatter · **What happens:** mean, not take, say, be, take · **To what, where:** less, more · **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 (You, Hatter), 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:pg11:8:112
# text = “You mean you can’t take _less_,” said the Hatter: “it’s very easy to take _more_ than nothing.”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	You	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	mean	mean	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	13	ccomp	_	_
4	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
5	ca	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	7	advmod	_	_
7	take	take	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	ccomp	_	_
8	_	_	PUNCT	NFP	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	less	less	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	_	_	PUNCT	NFP	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
13	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	Hatter	Hatter	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	21	punct	_	_
17	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	21	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	expl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	’s	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	21	cop	_	_
20	very	very	ADV	RB	_	21	advmod	_	_
21	easy	easy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	ccomp	_	_
22	to	to	PART	TO	_	23	mark	_	_
23	take	take	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	21	csubj	_	_
24	_	_	PUNCT	NFP	_	25	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	more	more	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	23	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	_	_	PUNCT	NFP	_	23	punct	_	_
27	than	than	ADP	IN	_	28	case	_	_
28	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	23	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	13	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **mean** *in a quote* | present | You |  |  |  |  |  | vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **not** **take** *in a quote* | can | you | less |  |  |  |  | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent less=Theme |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the Hatter |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 4 | **is** *in a quote* | present |  |  |  |  |  | easy *property* | tree rules |
| 5 | **take** *in a quote* | to-infinitive |  | more |  |  |  | than nothing | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent more=Theme |

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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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