---
title: The first thing he saw was Mr. McGregor hoeing onions. — The Tale of Peter Rabbit · tree and pragmatics
description: The first thing he saw was Mr. McGregor hoeing onions. Who acts: Peter, first thing, McGregor. 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 48

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The first thing he saw was Mr. McGregor hoeing onions.

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**Who acts:** Peter, first thing, McGregor · **What happens:** see, be, hoe · **To what, where:** first thing, McGregor, onions

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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, first thing, McGregor), 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:pg14838:2:48
# text = The first thing he saw was Mr. McGregor hoeing onions.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	first	first	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos|NumForm=Word|NumType=Ord	3	amod	_	_
3	thing	thing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	_
4	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	saw	see	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	acl:relcl	_	_
6	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	cop	_	_
7	Mr.	Mr.	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	8	nmod:desc	_	_
8	McGregor	McGregor	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
9	hoeing	hoe	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	8	acl	_	_
10	onions	onion	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **see** | past | Peter | the first thing *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer thing=Stimulus |
| 2 | **is a** | past | the first thing | McGregor |  |  |  | Mr. *nmod:desc* | tree rules |
| 3 | **hoe** | gerund | McGregor *not said here* | onions |  |  |  |  | vn funnel-9.3 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent onion=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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