---
title: They were flying over the sea before this thought began to disturb W… — Peter Pan · tree and pragmatics
description: They were flying over the sea before this thought began to disturb Wendy seriously. Who acts: John, thought. A sentence of «Peter Pan» by J. M. Barrie, Chapter IV. THE FLIGHT, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Peter Pan, Chapter IV. THE FLIGHT, sentence 9

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They were flying over the sea before this thought began to disturb Wendy seriously.

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**Who acts:** John, thought · **What happens:** fly, begin, disturb · **To what, where:** sea, Wendy

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This is a sentence of «Peter Pan» by J. M. Barrie, Chapter IV. THE FLIGHT. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (John, thought), 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:pg16:5:9
# text = They were flying over the sea before this thought began to disturb Wendy seriously.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
3	flying	fly	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
4	over	over	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	sea	sea	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	_
7	before	before	SCONJ	IN	_	10	mark	_	_
8	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	9	det	_	_
9	thought	thought	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	_
10	began	begin	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	advcl	_	_
11	to	to	PART	TO	_	12	mark	_	_
12	disturb	disturb	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	xcomp	_	_
13	Wendy	Wendy	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	_
14	seriously	seriously	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **fly** | past · progressive | John |  |  | the sea |  |  | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme over sea=Location |
| 2 | **begin** | past | this thought |  |  |  |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 3 | **disturb** | to-infinitive | this thought *not said here* | Wendy |  |  |  | seriously *property* | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Stimulus wendy=Experiencer |

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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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