Alice in Wonderland, chapter VII, part 1: A Mad Tea-Party (no room, riddles and Time), sentence 4

The March Hare offers her wine that is not there, the Hatter says her hair needs cutting, then he asks a riddle: «Why is a raven like a writing-desk?» Alice says she can guess it, and they tease her for mixing up «saying what you mean» and «meaning what you say».

Who acts: March, wine, Hatter, hair, Alice, elbows · What happens: offer, not be, say, need, cut, ask · To what, where: wine, riddle, raven, Alice · Speech: someone speaks here

This is a sentence of the lesson «Alice in Wonderland, chapter VII, part 1: A Mad Tea-Party (no room, riddles and Time)» of the books course of Mova's primary school. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (March, wine, Hatter, hair), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

The tree

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	3 Hare	det
2	March	March	PROPN	Number=Sing	4 offers	nsubj
3	Hare	Hare	PROPN	Number=Sing	2 March	flat
4	offers	offer	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
5	her	her	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	6 wine	nmod:poss
6	wine	wine	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 offers	obj
7	that	that	PRON	PronType=Rel	10 there	nsubj
8	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	10 there	cop
9	not	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	10 there	advmod
10	there	there	ADV	PronType=Dem	6 wine	acl:relcl
11	,	,	PUNCT	_	8 is	punct
12	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	13 Hatter	det
13	Hatter	Hatter	PROPN	Number=Sing	14 says	nsubj
14	says	say	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	4 offers	parataxis
15	her	her	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	16 hair	nmod:poss
16	hair	hair	NOUN	Number=Sing	17 needs	nsubj
17	needs	need	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	14 says	ccomp
18	cutting	cut	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	17 needs	obj
19	,	,	PUNCT	_	22 asks	punct
20	then	then	ADV	PronType=Dem	22 asks	advmod
21	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	22 asks	nsubj
22	asks	ask	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	18 cutting	parataxis
23	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	24 riddle	det
24	riddle	riddle	NOUN	Number=Sing	22 asks	obj
25	:	:	PUNCT	_	30 raven	punct
26	«	«	PUNCT	_	30 raven	punct
27	Why	why	ADV	PronType=Int	30 raven	advmod
28	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	30 raven	cop
29	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	30 raven	det
30	raven	raven	NOUN	Number=Sing	24 riddle	appos
31	like	like	ADP	_	35 desk	case
32	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	35 desk	det
33	writing	writing	NOUN	Number=Sing	35 desk	compound
34	-	-	PUNCT	_	33 writing	punct
35	desk	desk	NOUN	Number=Sing	30 raven	nmod
36	?	?	PUNCT	_	22 asks	punct
37	»	»	PUNCT	_	22 asks	punct
38	Alice	Alice	PROPN	Number=Sing	39 says	nsubj
39	says	say	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	22 asks	conj
40	she	she	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	42 guess	nsubj
41	can	can	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	42 guess	aux
42	guess	guess	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	39 says	ccomp
43	it	it	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	42 guess	obj
44	,	,	PUNCT	_	47 tease	punct
45	and	and	CCONJ	_	47 tease	cc
46	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	47 tease	nsubj
47	tease	tease	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	39 says	conj
48	her	she	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	47 tease	obj
49	for	for	SCONJ	_	50 mixing	mark
50	mixing	mix	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	47 tease	advcl
51	up	up	ADP	_	50 mixing	compound:prt
52	«	«	PUNCT	_	53 saying	punct
53	saying	say	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	50 mixing	advcl
54	what	what	PRON	PronType=Int	53 saying	obj
55	you	you	PRON	Case=Nom Person=2 PronType=Prs	56 mean	nsubj
56	mean	mean	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=2 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	54 what	acl:relcl
57	»	»	PUNCT	_	53 saying	punct
58	and	and	CCONJ	_	60 meaning	cc
59	«	«	PUNCT	_	60 meaning	punct
60	meaning	mean	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	53 saying	conj
61	what	what	PRON	PronType=Int	60 meaning	obj
62	you	you	PRON	Case=Nom Person=2 PronType=Prs	63 say	nsubj
63	say	say	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=2 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	61 what	acl:relcl
64	»	»	PUNCT	_	63 say	punct
65	.	.	PUNCT	_	4 offers	punct

Pragmatics

No stored speech act for this sentence.

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	when	other	roles by
1	offer	present	March	Alice's wine			vn future_having-13.3 «NP V NP.theme (PP)»: agent=Agent wine=Theme
2	not is	present	Alice's wine			there property	tree rules
3	say speech: assert	present	the Hatter				vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic
4	need	present	Alice's hair				vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP S_INF»: agent=Pivot
5	cut	gerund					vn amuse-31.1 «NP V ADV-Middle»: agent=Experiencer
6	ask speech: ask	present	hair	a riddle	then		vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent riddle=Recipient
7	is a in a quote	present		a raven		like a writing desk	tree rules
8	say speech: assert	present	Alice				vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic
9	guess	can	Alice	riddle			vn conjecture-29.5-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Theme
10	tease	present	elbows = elbow	Alice			vn bully-59.5 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent she=Patient
11	mix up	gerund	elbows = elbow not said here				vn mix-22.1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Patient
12	say speech: assert in a quote	gerund	elbows = elbow not said here				vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent what=Topic
13	mean in a quote	present	you				vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V S»: agent=Agent
14	mean in a quote	gerund	elbows = elbow not said here				vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent what=Topic
15	say speech: assert in a quote	present	you				vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent

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.

Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0, as the whole of Mova corpus 0.4, of which this treebank (the agreed school, mova-school-agreed-en.conllu) is part. The lessons were written for Mova's primary school. Sentence school:books:013-alice-a-mad-tea-party-1.lesson:4.

The tree: Mova annot: Rust (en) → Haiku 5.5 (medium, Batches API) patches; gates UD 2.18; agreed by treeagree rules (Stanza, Trankit, spaCy trf): R5-strong ×2, R6-punct-agree ×2, R7-rel-agree ×1, R8-pos-agree ×1. The frames are read from the tree by Mova's frames reader (prag) when this page is built, the lesson read in order, so a pronoun may be resolved from an earlier sentence.

See the release 0.4.

This page in Markdown → https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/13-alice-a-mad-tea-party-1/4/