---
title: “I don’t quite understand you,” she said, as politely as she could. — Alice's Adventures in Wonderland · tree and pragmatics
description: “I don’t quite understand you,” she said, as politely as she could. Who acts: 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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# Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Chapter VII. A Mad Tea-Party, sentence 44

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“I don’t quite understand you,” she said, as politely as she could.

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**Who acts:** Alice · **What happens:** not understand, say · **To what, where:** you · **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), 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:pg11:8:44
# text = “I don’t quite understand you,” she said, as politely as she could.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
3	do	do	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	6	advmod	_	_
5	quite	quite	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
6	understand	understand	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	ccomp	_	_
7	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	6	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
10	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
11	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
13	as	as	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	_
14	politely	politely	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	_
15	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	17	mark	_	_
16	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
17	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	14	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **understand** *in a quote* | present · do-support | Alice | you |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Experiencer you=Stimulus |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Alice |  |  |  |  | politely *property* | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |

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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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