Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Chapter III. A Caucus-Race and a Long Tale, sentence 31

“What I was going to say,” said the Dodo in an offended tone, “was, that the best thing to get us dry would be a Caucus-race.”

Who acts: Dodo, best thing · What happens: go, say, be, get · To what, where: best thing, us, Caucus race · Speech: someone speaks here

This is a sentence of «Alice's Adventures in Wonderland» by Lewis Carroll, Chapter III. A Caucus-Race and a Long Tale. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Dodo, best thing), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	“	"	PUNCT	_	5 going	punct
2	What	what	PRON	PronType=Int	5 going	nsubj
3	I	I	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs	5 going	nsubj
4	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	5 going	aux
5	going	go	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	10 said	ccomp
6	to	to	PART	_	7 say	mark
7	say	say	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	5 going	xcomp
8	,	,	PUNCT	_	5 going	punct
9	”	"	PUNCT	_	5 going	punct
10	said	say	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
11	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	12 Dodo	det
12	Dodo	Dodo	PROPN	Number=Sing	10 said	nsubj
13	in	in	ADP	_	16 tone	case
14	an	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	16 tone	det
15	offended	offended	ADJ	Degree=Pos	16 tone	amod
16	tone	tone	NOUN	Number=Sing	12 Dodo	nmod
17	,	,	PUNCT	_	24 thing	punct
18	“	"	PUNCT	_	24 thing	punct
19	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	24 thing	cop
20	,	,	PUNCT	_	24 thing	punct
21	that	that	SCONJ	_	24 thing	mark
22	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	24 thing	det
23	best	good	ADJ	Degree=Sup	24 thing	amod
24	thing	thing	NOUN	Number=Sing	34 race	nsubj
25	to	to	PART	_	26 get	mark
26	get	get	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	24 thing	acl
27	us	we	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=1 PronType=Prs	26 get	iobj
28	dry	dry	ADJ	Degree=Pos	26 get	xcomp
29	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	34 race	aux
30	be	be	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	34 race	cop
31	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	34 race	det
32	Caucus	Caucus	PROPN	Number=Sing	34 race	compound
33	-	-	PUNCT	_	32 Caucus	punct
34	race	race	NOUN	Number=Sing	10 said	ccomp
35	.	.	PUNCT	_	34 race	punct
36	”	"	PUNCT	_	34 race	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	other	roles by
1	go in a quote	past · progressive					vn say-37.7 «NP V S-Quote»: agent=Agent clause=Topic
2	say speech: assert in a quote	to-infinitive					vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent
3	say speech: assert	past	the Dodo in a offended tone				vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic
4	is a in a quote	past		the best thing			tree rules
5	get in a quote	to-infinitive	the best thing not said here		us	dry property	vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer we=Stimulus
6	is a in a quote	would	the best thing	a Caucus race			tree rules

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.

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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