---
title: His mother was busy cooking; she wondered what he had done with his… — The Tale of Peter Rabbit · tree and pragmatics
description: His mother was busy cooking; she wondered what he had done with his clothes. Who acts: mother, back, 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 56

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His mother was busy cooking; she wondered what he had done with his clothes.

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**Who acts:** mother, back, Peter · **What happens:** be, wonder, do · **To what, where:** busy cooking · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (mother, back, 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:pg14838:2:56
# text = His mother was busy cooking; she wondered what he had done with his clothes.
1	His	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	2	nmod:poss	_	_
2	mother	mother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
4	busy	busy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	cooking	cooking	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
7	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
8	wondered	wonder	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	acl:relcl	_	_
9	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	12	obj	_	_
10	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
11	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
12	done	do	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	8	ccomp	_	_
13	with	with	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	15	nmod:poss	_	_
15	clothes	clothes	NOUN	NNS	Number=Ptan	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | Peter's mother | busy cooking |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **wonder** *speech: ask* | past | back | busy cooking *not said here* |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **do** | past · perfect | Peter |  |  |  |  | with Peter's clothes | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent what=Eventuality |

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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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