---
title: The bearded man who doesn’t know any story to tell his children was… — Peter Pan · tree and pragmatics
description: The bearded man who doesn’t know any story to tell his children was once John. Who acts: bearded man. A sentence of «Peter Pan» by J. M. Barrie, Chapter XVII. WHEN WENDY GREW UP, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg16/18/124/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Peter Pan](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg16/) / [Chapter XVII. WHEN WENDY GREW UP](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg16/18/) / 124

# Peter Pan, Chapter XVII. WHEN WENDY GREW UP, sentence 124

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
The bearded man who doesn’t know any story to tell his children was once John.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** bearded man · **What happens:** not know, tell, be · **To what, where:** story, children, John · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Peter Pan» by J. M. Barrie, Chapter XVII. WHEN WENDY GREW UP. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (bearded man), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg16:18:124
# text = The bearded man who doesn’t know any story to tell his children was once John.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	bearded	bearded	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nsubj	_	_
4	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	7	nsubj	_	_
5	does	do	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	7	advmod	_	_
7	know	know	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	acl:relcl	_	_
8	any	any	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	9	det	_	_
9	story	story	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	_
10	to	to	PART	TO	_	11	mark	_	_
11	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	acl	_	_
12	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	13	nmod:poss	_	_
13	children	child	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	obj	_	_
14	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	16	cop	_	_
15	once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	16	advmod	_	_
16	John	John	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	16	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **know** | present · do-support | the bearded man | any story |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Experiencer story=Stimulus |
| 2 | **tell** *speech: assert* | to-infinitive | the bearded man *not said here* | any story *not said here* | man's children |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent child=Recipient |
| 3 | **is a** | past | the bearded man | John |  |  |  | once *property* | tree rules |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 123](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg16/18/123/)
- next →: [sentence 125](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg16/18/125/)
- ↑ back to [Chapter XVII. WHEN WENDY GREW UP](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg16/18/)