---
title: “Perhaps not,” Alice cautiously replied: “but I know I have to beat… — Alice's Adventures in Wonderland · tree and pragmatics
description: “Perhaps not,” Alice cautiously replied: “but I know I have to beat time when I learn music.” 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 58

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“Perhaps not,” Alice cautiously replied: “but I know I have to beat time when I learn music.”

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**Who acts:** Alice · **What happens:** reply, know, have, beat, learn · **To what, where:** music · **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:pg11:8:58
# text = “Perhaps not,” Alice cautiously replied: “but I know I have to beat time when I learn music.”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Perhaps	perhaps	ADV	RB	_	8	advmod	_	_
3	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	2	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
6	Alice	Alice	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	_
7	cautiously	cautiously	ADV	RB	_	8	advmod	_	_
8	replied	reply	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	8	punct	_	_
10	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
12	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
13	know	know	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	8	parataxis	_	_
14	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
15	have	have	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	13	ccomp	_	_
16	to	to	PART	TO	_	17	mark	_	_
17	beat	beat	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	xcomp	_	_
18	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obj	_	_
19	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	21	advmod	_	_
20	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	21	nsubj	_	_
21	learn	learn	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	17	advcl	_	_
22	music	music	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	13	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **reply** *speech: assert* | past | Alice |  |  |  |  | cautiously, perhaps *property* | vn say-37.7-1 «NP V S-Quote»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **know** *in a quote* | present | Alice |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 3 | **have** *in a quote* | present | Alice |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **beat** *in a quote* | to-infinitive | Alice *not said here* |  |  |  | time |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 5 | **learn** *in a quote* | present | Alice | music |  |  |  |  | vn learn-14-2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent music=Topic |

<!-- .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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