---
title: They would have reached the nursery in time had it not been that the… — Peter Pan · tree and pragmatics
description: They would have reached the nursery in time had it not been that the little stars were watching them. Who acts: stories, little stars. A sentence of «Peter Pan» by J. M. Barrie, Chapter III. COME AWAY, COME AWAY!, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Peter Pan, Chapter III. COME AWAY, COME AWAY!, sentence 317

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They would have reached the nursery in time had it not been that the little stars were watching them.

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**Who acts:** stories, little stars · **What happens:** reach, have, not watch · **To what, where:** nursery, stories

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This is a sentence of «Peter Pan» by J. M. Barrie, Chapter III. COME AWAY, COME AWAY!. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (stories, little stars), 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:pg16:4:317
# text = They would have reached the nursery in time had it not been that the little stars were watching them.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
3	have	have	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	aux	_	_
4	reached	reach	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	nursery	nursery	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	_
7	in	in	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	_
9	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	parataxis	_	_
10	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	obj	_	_
11	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	18	advmod	_	_
12	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	18	aux	_	_
13	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	18	mark	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
15	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	amod	_	_
16	stars	star	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	18	nsubj	_	_
17	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	18	aux	_	_
18	watching	watch	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	9	xcomp	_	_
19	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **reach** | would · perfect | stories *= story* | the nursery |  |  | time |  | vn body\_motion-49.2-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: agent=Agent nursery=Theme |
| 2 | **have** | past |  | nursery |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **not** **watch** | participle · progressive | the little stars | stories *= story* |  |  |  |  | vn assessment-34.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent they=Theme |

<!-- .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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