---
title: They knew it; but as their father’s sons they acquitted themselves. — Peter Pan · tree and pragmatics
description: They knew it; but as their father’s sons they acquitted themselves. Who acts: masters. A sentence of «Peter Pan» by J. M. Barrie, Chapter XII. THE CHILDREN ARE CARRIED OFF, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Peter Pan, Chapter XII. THE CHILDREN ARE CARRIED OFF, sentence 24

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They knew it; but as their father’s sons they acquitted themselves.

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**Who acts:** masters · **What happens:** know, acquit · **To what, where:** utterance, masters

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This is a sentence of «Peter Pan» by J. M. Barrie, Chapter XII. THE CHILDREN ARE CARRIED OFF. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (masters), 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:pg16:13:24
# text = They knew it; but as their father’s sons they acquitted themselves.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	knew	know	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	12	punct	_	_
5	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
6	as	as	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
7	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
8	father	father	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	’s	's	PART	POS	_	8	case	_	_
10	sons	son	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	obl	_	_
11	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
12	acquitted	acquit	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
13	themselves	themselves	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	12	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **know** | past | masters *= master* | utterance |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Experiencer it=Stimulus |
| 2 | **acquit** | past | masters *= master* | masters *= master* |  |  |  | as masters's father's sons | vn free-10.6.3-1 «NP V NP S\_ING»: agent=Causer themselves=Source |

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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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