Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Chapter VII. A Mad Tea-Party, sentence 52

“I think you might do something better with the time,” she said, “than waste it in asking riddles that have no answers.”

Who acts: I, you, Alice, riddles · What happens: think, do, say, waste, ask, have · To what, where: something, idea, riddles, answers · Speech: someone speaks here

This is a sentence of «Alice's Adventures in Wonderland» by Lewis Carroll, Chapter VII. A Mad Tea-Party. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I, you, Alice, riddles), 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	_	3 think	punct
2	I	I	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs	3 think	nsubj
3	think	think	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	15 said	ccomp
4	you	you	PRON	Case=Nom Person=2 PronType=Prs	6 do	nsubj
5	might	might	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	6 do	aux
6	do	do	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	3 think	ccomp
7	something	something	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Ind	6 do	obj
8	better	good	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	7 something	amod
9	with	with	ADP	_	11 time	case
10	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	11 time	det
11	time	time	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 do	obl
12	,	,	PUNCT	_	3 think	punct
13	”	"	PUNCT	_	3 think	punct
14	she	she	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	15 said	nsubj
15	said	say	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
16	,	,	PUNCT	_	19 waste	punct
17	“	"	PUNCT	_	19 waste	punct
18	than	than	SCONJ	_	19 waste	mark
19	waste	waste	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	15 said	ccomp
20	it	it	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	19 waste	obj
21	in	in	SCONJ	_	22 asking	mark
22	asking	ask	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	19 waste	advcl
23	riddles	riddle	NOUN	Number=Plur	22 asking	obj
24	that	that	PRON	PronType=Rel	25 have	nsubj
25	have	have	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	23 riddles	acl:relcl
26	no	no	DET	PronType=Neg	27 answers	det
27	answers	answer	NOUN	Number=Plur	25 have	obj
28	.	.	PUNCT	_	15 said	punct
29	”	"	PUNCT	_	15 said	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	when	roles by
1	think speech: other in a quote	present	I			vn consider-29.9-2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Theme
2	do in a quote	might	you	something	time	vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent something=Eventuality
3	say speech: assert	past	Alice			vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic
4	waste in a quote	infinitive		idea		vn destroy-44 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Patient
5	ask speech: ask in a quote	gerund		riddles		vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent riddle=Recipient
6	have in a quote	present	riddles	no answers		vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent answer=Patient

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/pg11/8/52/