---
title: “How should _I_ know?” said Alice, surprised at her own courage. — Alice's Adventures in Wonderland · tree and pragmatics
description: “How should _I_ know?” said Alice, surprised at her own courage. Who acts: Alice. 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 clause.
---

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# Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Chapter VIII. The Queen’s Croquet-Ground, sentence 32

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“How should \_I\_ know?” said Alice, surprised at her own courage.

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**Who acts:** Alice · **What happens:** know, say · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (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:pg11:9:32
# text = “How should _I_ know?” said Alice, surprised at her own courage.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	How	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	7	advmod	_	_
3	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
4	_	_	PUNCT	NFP	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	_	_	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
7	know	know	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	7	punct	_	_
10	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
11	Alice	Alice	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
13	surprised	surprised	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	parataxis	_	_
14	at	at	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
15	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	17	nmod:poss	_	_
16	own	own	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	amod	_	_
17	courage	courage	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **know** *in a quote* | should | Alice |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |
| 2 | **say** *speech: ask* | past | Alice |  |  |  |  |  | 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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