---
title: If she was too fond of her rubbishy children, she couldn’t help it. — Peter Pan · tree and pragmatics
description: If she was too fond of her rubbishy children, she couldn’t help it. Who acts: woman. A sentence of «Peter Pan» by J. M. Barrie, Chapter XVI. THE RETURN HOME, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Peter Pan, Chapter XVI. THE RETURN HOME, sentence 64

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If she was too fond of her rubbishy children, she couldn’t help it.

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**Who acts:** woman · **What happens:** be, not help · **To what, where:** gaiety

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This is a sentence of «Peter Pan» by J. M. Barrie, Chapter XVI. THE RETURN HOME. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (woman), 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:pg16:17:64
# text = If she was too fond of her rubbishy children, she couldn’t help it.
1	If	if	SCONJ	IN	_	5	mark	_	_
2	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
4	too	too	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	fond	fond	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	advcl	_	_
6	of	of	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
7	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	9	nmod:poss	_	_
8	rubbishy	rubbishy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	children	child	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
11	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
12	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	14	advmod	_	_
14	help	help	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
15	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	14	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** *a condition, not said to happen* | past | woman |  |  |  |  | of woman's rubbishy children; fond *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **not** **help** | could | woman | gaiety |  |  |  |  | vn help-72.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Beneficiary |

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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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