---
title: “I couldn’t help it,” said Five, in a sulky tone; “Seven jogged my e… — Alice's Adventures in Wonderland · tree and pragmatics
description: “I couldn’t help it,” said Five, in a sulky tone; “Seven jogged my elbow.” Who acts: I, Seven. 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 4

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“I couldn’t help it,” said Five, in a sulky tone; “Seven jogged my elbow.”

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**Who acts:** I, Seven · **What happens:** not help, say, jog · **To what, where:** paint, Five, sulky tone, elbow · **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 (I, Seven), 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:pg11:9:4
# text = “I couldn’t help it,” said Five, in a sulky tone; “Seven jogged my elbow.”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
3	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	5	advmod	_	_
5	help	help	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	ccomp	_	_
6	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
9	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
10	Five	five	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
12	in	in	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
13	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
14	sulky	sulky	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
15	tone	tone	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	19	punct	_	_
17	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	19	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	Seven	seven	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	19	nsubj	_	_
19	jogged	jog	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	parataxis	_	_
20	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	21	nmod:poss	_	_
21	elbow	elbow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	19	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	19	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **help** *in a quote* | could | I | paint |  |  |  |  | vn help-72.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Beneficiary |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past |  | Five |  | a sulky tone |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **jog** *in a quote* | past | Seven | my elbow |  |  |  |  | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme elbow=Trajectory |

<!-- .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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