---
title: “But they were _in_ the well,” Alice said to the Dormouse, not choos… — Alice's Adventures in Wonderland · tree and pragmatics
description: “But they were _in_ the well,” Alice said to the Dormouse, not choosing to notice this last remark. Who acts: Hare, Alice. 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/pg11/8/134/)

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# Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Chapter VII. A Mad Tea-Party, sentence 134

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“But they were \_in\_ the well,” Alice said to the Dormouse, not choosing to notice this last remark.

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**Who acts:** Hare, Alice · **What happens:** be, say, not choose, notice · **To what, where:** well, Dormouse, last remark · **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 (Hare, Alice), 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:pg11:8:134
# text = “But they were _in_ the well,” Alice said to the Dormouse, not choosing to notice this last remark.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
3	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
4	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	cop	_	_
5	_	_	PUNCT	NFP	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	in	in	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	_	_	PUNCT	NFP	_	6	punct	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	well	well	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	9	punct	_	_
12	Alice	Alice	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	_
13	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
14	to	to	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	Dormouse	Dormouse	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
18	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	19	advmod	_	_
19	choosing	choose	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	13	advcl	_	_
20	to	to	PART	TO	_	21	mark	_	_
21	notice	notice	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	19	xcomp	_	_
22	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	24	det	_	_
23	last	last	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	24	amod	_	_
24	remark	remark	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	13	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** *in a quote* | past | Hare |  |  | the well |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Alice |  | the Dormouse |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V PP.recipient S-Quote»: agent=Agent to dormouse=Recipient |
| 3 | **not** **choose** | gerund | Alice *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **notice** | to-infinitive | Alice *not said here* | this last remark |  |  |  |  | vn see-30.1-1 «NP V S»: agent=Experiencer remark=Stimulus |

<!-- .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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