---
title: Alice did not wish to offend the Dormouse again, so she began very c… — Alice's Adventures in Wonderland · tree and pragmatics
description: Alice did not wish to offend the Dormouse again, so she began very cautiously: “But I don’t understand. Who acts: Alice, 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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# Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Chapter VII. A Mad Tea-Party, sentence 131

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Alice did not wish to offend the Dormouse again, so she began very cautiously: “But I don’t understand.

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**Who acts:** Alice, Hatter · **What happens:** not wish, offend, begin, not understand · **To what, where:** Dormouse · **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 (Alice, 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:pg11:8:131
# text = Alice did not wish to offend the Dormouse again, so she began very cautiously: “But I don’t understand.
1	Alice	Alice	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
2	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
3	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	4	advmod	_	_
4	wish	wish	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
6	offend	offend	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	xcomp	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	Dormouse	Dormouse	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	_
9	again	again	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
11	so	so	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	_
12	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
13	began	begin	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	parataxis	_	_
14	very	very	ADV	RB	_	15	advmod	_	_
15	cautiously	cautiously	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	22	punct	_	_
17	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	22	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
19	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	22	nsubj	_	_
20	do	do	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	22	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	22	advmod	_	_
22	understand	understand	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **wish** | past · do-support | Alice |  |  |  |  |  | vn wish-62 «NP V for NP S\_INF»: agent=Pivot clause=Theme |
| 2 | **offend** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | Alice *not said here* | the Dormouse |  |  | again |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Stimulus dormouse=Experiencer |
| 3 | **begin** | past | Alice |  |  |  |  | cautiously *property* | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP.eventuality V»: agent=Eventuality |
| 4 | **not** **understand** *in a quote* | present · do-support | Hatter |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |

<!-- .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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