---
title: His back was turned towards Peter, and beyond him was the gate! — The Tale of Peter Rabbit · tree and pragmatics
description: His back was turned towards Peter, and beyond him was the gate! 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.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg14838/2/49/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Tale of Peter Rabbit](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg14838/) / [Frederick Warne](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg14838/2/) / 49

# The Tale of Peter Rabbit, Frederick Warne, sentence 49

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
His back was turned towards Peter, and beyond him was the gate!

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Peter · **What happens:** turn, be · **To what, where:** back, Peter

<!-- .vabout -->
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.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg14838:2:49
# text = His back was turned towards Peter, and beyond him was the gate!
1	His	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	2	nmod:poss	_	_
2	back	back	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj:pass	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux:pass	_	_
4	turned	turn	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
5	towards	towards	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	Peter	Peter	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
9	beyond	beyond	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
10	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
11	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	cop	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	gate	gate	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **turn** | past · passive |  | Peter's back |  | Peter |  |  | vn roll-51.3.1 «NP V NP PP.trajectory»: subject=Theme towards peter=Trajectory |
| 2 | **is** | past | Peter |  |  |  |  | beyond the gate | tree rules |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 48](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg14838/2/48/)
- next →: [sentence 50](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg14838/2/50/)
- ↑ back to [Frederick Warne](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg14838/2/)