---
title: The King’s argument was, that anything that had a head could be behe… — Alice's Adventures in Wonderland · tree and pragmatics
description: The King’s argument was, that anything that had a head could be beheaded, and that you weren’t to talk nonsense. Who acts: you, King. A sentence of «Alice's Adventures in Wonderland» by Lewis Carroll, Chapter VIII. The Queen’s Croquet-Ground, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clau
---

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# Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Chapter VIII. The Queen’s Croquet-Ground, sentence 109

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The King’s argument was, that anything that had a head could be beheaded, and that you weren’t to talk nonsense.

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**Who acts:** you, King · **What happens:** have, behead, not talk, argue · **To what, where:** head, argument, nonsense

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This is a sentence of «Alice's Adventures in Wonderland» by Lewis Carroll, Chapter VIII. The Queen’s Croquet-Ground. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, King), 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:pg11:9:109
# text = The King’s argument was, that anything that had a head could be beheaded, and that you weren’t to talk nonsense.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	King	King	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	4	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	’s	's	PART	POS	_	2	case	_	_
4	argument	argument	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nsubj:outer	_	_
5	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	aux:pass	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
7	that	that	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	8	det	_	_
8	anything	anything	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	15	nsubj:pass	_	_
9	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	10	nsubj	_	_
10	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	acl:relcl	_	_
11	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	head	head	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	_
13	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	15	aux	_	_
14	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	aux:pass	_	_
15	beheaded	behead	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
17	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	23	cc	_	_
18	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	23	mark	_	_
19	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	23	nsubj	_	_
20	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	23	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	23	advmod	_	_
22	to	to	PART	TO	_	23	mark	_	_
23	talk	talk	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	conj	_	_
24	nonsense	nonsense	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	15	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** | past |  | a head |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent head=Patient |
| 2 | **behead** | could · past · passive |  | the King's argument |  |  |  |  | vn poison-42.2 «NP V NP»: subject=Patient |
| 3 | **not** **talk** | past | you | nonsense |  |  |  |  | vn compel-59.1 «NP V NP S\_ING»: agent=Agent nonsense=Patient |
| 4 | **argue** |  | the King |  |  |  |  |  | nom argument «communication transitive»: poss=agent |

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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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- ← previous: [sentence 108](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg11/9/108/)
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- ↑ back to [Chapter VIII. The Queen’s Croquet-Ground](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg11/9/)