---
title: “We complain of John,” cried the twins. — Peter Pan · tree and pragmatics
description: “We complain of John,” cried the twins. Who acts: We, twins. A sentence of «Peter Pan» by J. M. Barrie, Chapter X. THE HAPPY HOME, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Peter Pan, Chapter X. THE HAPPY HOME, sentence 38

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“We complain of John,” cried the twins.

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**Who acts:** We, twins · **What happens:** complain, cry · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Peter Pan» by J. M. Barrie, Chapter X. THE HAPPY HOME. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (We, twins), 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:pg16:11:38
# text = “We complain of John,” cried the twins.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	We	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	complain	complain	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	8	parataxis	_	_
4	of	of	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	John	John	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
8	cried	cry	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	twins	twin	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	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 | **complain** *speech: other* *in a quote* | present | We |  |  |  |  | of John | vn complain-37.8 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **cry** *speech: express* | past | the twins |  |  |  |  |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |

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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:** «Peter Pan» by J. M. Barrie, Project Gutenberg book 16 (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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