---
title: He began to turn them over carefully, looking under each. — The Tale of Peter Rabbit · tree and pragmatics
description: He began to turn them over carefully, looking under each. Who acts: Peter. A sentence of «The Tale of Peter Rabbit» by Beatrix Potter, Frederick Warne, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Tale of Peter Rabbit, Frederick Warne, sentence 27

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He began to turn them over carefully, looking under each.

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**Who acts:** Peter · **What happens:** begin, turn over, look · **To what, where:** tears

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This is a sentence of «The Tale of Peter Rabbit» by Beatrix Potter, Frederick Warne. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Peter), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**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 {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg14838:2:27
# text = He began to turn them over carefully, looking under each.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	began	begin	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	to	to	PART	TO	_	4	mark	_	_
4	turn	turn	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	xcomp	_	_
5	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	obj	_	_
6	over	over	ADP	RP	_	4	compound:prt	_	_
7	carefully	carefully	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
9	looking	look	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	4	advcl	_	_
10	under	under	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
11	each	each	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **begin** | past | Peter |  |  |  |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 2 | **turn over** | to-infinitive | Peter *not said here* | tears *= tear* |  |  |  | carefully *property* | vn contribute-13.2 «NP V NP.theme (PP)»: agent=Agent they=Theme |
| 3 | **look** | gerund | Peter *not said here* |  |  |  |  | under each | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent under each=Theme |

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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.

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**Text:** «The Tale of Peter Rabbit» by Beatrix Potter, Project Gutenberg book 14838 (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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