Lewis Carroll's Duchess and the English Grammar

The incomprehensible sentence formulated by the Duchess in chapter 9 of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland (New York: W. W. Norton, 1999), as she advises Alice on the importance of appearing to others, is reproduced & subjected to a grammatical-stylistic analysis with references to the prescriptions of "correct English" in three major grammars: (1) Randolph Quirk et al, A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language (Harlow: Longman, 1985), (2) Rodney Huddleston et al, The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language (Cambridge: Cambridge U Press, 2002), & (3) Douglas Biber et al, Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English (Harlow: Longman, 1999). The examination attempts to determine whether the Duchess's sentence conforms to prescriptions in this grammars, & if it doesn't, how it violates these prescriptions, vis-a-vis the correct syntax of comparative clauses, wh-clefts, fused relatives, & report embedding. Some observations are made how the mathematician & logician Charles Lutwidge Dodgson would analyze this sentence & whose behavior is face saving or threatening in the exchange between the Duchess & Alice. 7 References. Z. Dubiel