---
title: There was little sound, and none agreeable save the whir of the ship… — Peter Pan · tree and pragmatics
description: There was little sound, and none agreeable save the whir of the ship’s sewing machine at which Smee sat, ever industrious and obliging, the essence of the commonplace, pathetic Smee. Who acts: little sound, none, Smee, sewing machine. A sentence of «Peter Pan» by J. M. Barrie, Chapter XIV. THE PIRAT
---

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# Peter Pan, Chapter XIV. THE PIRATE SHIP, sentence 4

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
There was little sound, and none agreeable save the whir of the ship’s sewing machine at which Smee sat, ever industrious and obliging, the essence of the commonplace, pathetic Smee.

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**Who acts:** little sound, none, Smee, sewing machine · **What happens:** be, save, sit, oblige, whir · **To what, where:** whir, sewing machine

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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 (little sound, none, Smee, sewing machine), 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:pg16:15:4
# text = There was little sound, and none agreeable save the whir of the ship’s sewing machine at which Smee sat, ever industrious and obliging, the essence of the commonplace, pathetic Smee.
1	There	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	2	expl	_	_
2	was	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	sound	sound	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
7	none	none	PRON	NN	PronType=Neg	9	nsubj	_	_
8	agreeable	agreeable	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
9	save	save	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	advcl	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	whir	whir	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	_
12	of	of	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	ship	ship	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	’s	's	PART	POS	_	14	case	_	_
16	sewing	sewing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	compound	_	_
17	machine	machine	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nmod	_	_
18	at	at	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
19	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	21	obl	_	_
20	Smee	Smee	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	21	nsubj	_	_
21	sat	sit	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	24	punct	_	_
23	ever	ever	ADV	RB	PronType=Ind	24	advmod	_	_
24	industrious	industrious	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	21	parataxis	_	_
25	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	26	cc	_	_
26	obliging	oblige	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	24	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	29	punct	_	_
28	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	29	det	_	_
29	essence	essence	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	appos	_	_
30	of	of	ADP	IN	_	32	case	_	_
31	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	32	det	_	_
32	commonplace	commonplace	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	29	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
33	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	35	punct	_	_
34	pathetic	pathetic	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	35	amod	_	_
35	Smee	Smee	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	32	appos	_	SpaceAfter=No
36	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | past | little sound |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **save** | infinitive | none | the whir of the ship's sewing machine |  |  |  |  | vn get-13.5.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent whir=Theme |
| 3 | **sit** | past | Smee |  |  | the ship's sewing machine |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent at which=Location |
| 4 | **oblige** | gerund | Smee *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn compel-59.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 5 | **whir** |  | the ship's sewing machine |  |  |  |  |  | nom whir «event intransitive»: of=agent |

<!-- .note -->
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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