---
title: “Better for Hook,” he cried, “if he had had less ambition!” — Peter Pan · tree and pragmatics
description: “Better for Hook,” he cried, “if he had had less ambition!” Who acts: Hook. A sentence of «Peter Pan» by J. M. Barrie, Chapter XIV. THE PIRATE SHIP, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Peter Pan, Chapter XIV. THE PIRATE SHIP, sentence 39

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“Better for Hook,” he cried, “if he had had less ambition!”

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**Who acts:** Hook · **What happens:** cry, have · **To what, where:** less ambition · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Peter Pan» by J. M. Barrie, Chapter XIV. THE PIRATE SHIP. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Hook), 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:pg16:15:39
# text = “Better for Hook,” he cried, “if he had had less ambition!”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Better	good	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	8	advmod	_	_
3	for	for	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
4	Hook	hook	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
7	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
8	cried	cry	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
10	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	14	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	14	mark	_	_
12	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
13	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
14	had	have	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	8	parataxis	_	_
15	less	less	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	16	amod	_	_
16	ambition	ambition	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	14	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	14	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **cry** *speech: express* | past | Hook |  |  |  |  |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **have** *a condition, not said to happen, in a quote* | past · perfect | Hook | less ambition |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent ambition=Patient |

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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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