Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Chapter V. Advice from a Caterpillar, sentence 10
“I’m afraid I can’t put it more clearly,” Alice replied very politely, “for I can’t understand it myself to begin with; and being so many different sizes in a day is very confusing.”
Who acts: Caterpillar, Alice · What happens: be, not put, reply, not understand, begin · To what, where: least, many different sizes · Speech: someone speaks here
This is a sentence of «Alice's Adventures in Wonderland» by Lewis Carroll, Chapter V. Advice from a Caterpillar. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Caterpillar, Alice), 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 | _ | 4 afraid | punct |
| 2 | I | I | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs | 3 ’m | nsubj |
| 3 | ’m | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 4 afraid | cop |
| 4 | afraid | afraid | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 42 confusing | csubj |
| 5 | I | I | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs | 8 put | nsubj |
| 6 | ca | can | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 8 put | aux |
| 7 | n’t | not | PART | Polarity=Neg | 8 put | advmod |
| 8 | put | put | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 4 afraid | ccomp |
| 9 | it | it | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 8 put | obj |
| 10 | more | more | ADV | Degree=Cmp | 11 clearly | advmod |
| 11 | clearly | clearly | ADV | _ | 8 put | advmod |
| 12 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 4 afraid | punct |
| 13 | ” | " | PUNCT | _ | 4 afraid | punct |
| 14 | Alice | Alice | PROPN | Number=Sing | 15 replied | nsubj |
| 15 | replied | reply | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 4 afraid | parataxis |
| 16 | very | very | ADV | _ | 17 politely | advmod |
| 17 | politely | politely | ADV | _ | 15 replied | advmod |
| 18 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 24 understand | punct |
| 19 | “ | " | PUNCT | _ | 24 understand | punct |
| 20 | for | for | SCONJ | _ | 24 understand | mark |
| 21 | I | I | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs | 24 understand | nsubj |
| 22 | ca | can | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 24 understand | aux |
| 23 | n’t | not | PART | Polarity=Neg | 24 understand | advmod |
| 24 | understand | understand | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 15 replied | parataxis |
| 25 | it | it | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 24 understand | obj |
| 26 | myself | myself | PRON | Case=Acc Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs Reflex=Yes | 24 understand | obj |
| 27 | to | to | PART | _ | 28 begin | mark |
| 28 | begin | begin | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 24 understand | advcl |
| 29 | with | with | ADP | _ | 28 begin | obl |
| 30 | ; | ; | PUNCT | _ | 36 sizes | punct |
| 31 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 36 sizes | cc |
| 32 | being | be | AUX | Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part | 36 sizes | cop |
| 33 | so | so | ADV | _ | 34 many | advmod |
| 34 | many | many | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 36 sizes | amod |
| 35 | different | different | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 36 sizes | amod |
| 36 | sizes | size | NOUN | Number=Plur | 4 afraid | obl |
| 37 | in | in | ADP | _ | 39 day | case |
| 38 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 39 day | det |
| 39 | day | day | NOUN | Number=Sing | 36 sizes | nmod |
| 40 | is | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 42 confusing | cop |
| 41 | very | very | ADV | _ | 42 confusing | advmod |
| 42 | confusing | confusing | ADJ | Degree=Pos | root | root |
| 43 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 42 confusing | punct |
| 44 | ” | " | PUNCT | _ | 42 confusing | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | is in a quote | present | afraid property | tree rules | |||||
| 2 | not put in a quote | can | the Caterpillar = caterpillar | least | clearly property | vn invest-13.5.4-1 «NP V PP»: agent=Agent it=Goal | |||
| 3 | reply speech: assert | past | Alice | politely property | vn say-37.7-1 «NP V S-Quote»: agent=Agent clause=Topic | ||||
| 4 | not understand in a quote | can | Alice | least | tree rules | ||||
| 5 | begin in a quote | to-infinitive | Alice not said here | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP.eventuality V»: agent=Eventuality | |||||
| 6 | is a in a quote | gerund | many different sizes | day | tree rules | ||||
| 7 | is in a quote | present | confusing property | 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.
This page in Markdown → https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg11/6/10/