---
title: So they were told they could dance, but they must put on their night… — Peter Pan · tree and pragmatics
description: So they were told they could dance, but they must put on their nighties first. Who acts: People. 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 96

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So they were told they could dance, but they must put on their nighties first.

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**Who acts:** People · **What happens:** tell, dance, put · **To what, where:** People, nighties · **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 (People), 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:pg16:11:96
# text = So they were told they could dance, but they must put on their nighties first.
1	So	so	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
2	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj:pass	_	_
3	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux:pass	_	_
4	told	tell	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
5	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
6	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
7	dance	dance	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
9	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
10	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
11	must	must	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
12	put	put	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	conj	_	_
13	on	on	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	15	nmod:poss	_	_
15	nighties	nightie	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	obl	_	_
16	first	first	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Ord	12	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **tell** *speech: assert* | past · passive |  | People |  |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: subject=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 2 | **dance** | could | People |  |  |  |  |  | vn modes\_of\_being\_with\_motion-47.3 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **put** | must | People |  |  | People's nighties |  | first *property* | vn put-9.1-2 «NP V PP.destination NP»: agent=Agent on nightie=Destination |

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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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