---
title: “Did you say ‘What a pity!’?” the Rabbit asked. — Alice's Adventures in Wonderland · tree and pragmatics
description: “Did you say ‘What a pity!’?” the Rabbit asked. Who acts: you, Rabbit. 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 63

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“Did you say ‘What a pity!’?” the Rabbit asked.

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**Who acts:** you, Rabbit · **What happens:** say, pity, ask · **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 (you, Rabbit), 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:pg11:9:63
# text = “Did you say ‘What a pity!’?” the Rabbit asked.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
3	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	say	say	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	ccomp	_	_
5	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	What	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	8	nsubj	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	pity	pity	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	Rabbit	rabbit	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nsubj	_	_
15	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	15	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | past · do-support | you |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **pity** *in a quote* |  |  |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past | the Rabbit |  |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V how 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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