---
title: What the boys were wondering was, would any one answer the knock? — Peter Pan · tree and pragmatics
description: What the boys were wondering was, would any one answer the knock? Who acts: boys. A sentence of «Peter Pan» by J. M. Barrie, Chapter VI. THE LITTLE HOUSE, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Peter Pan, Chapter VI. THE LITTLE HOUSE, sentence 190

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What the boys were wondering was, would any one answer the knock?

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**Who acts:** boys · **What happens:** wonder, be

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This is a sentence of «Peter Pan» by J. M. Barrie, Chapter VI. THE LITTLE HOUSE. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (boys), 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:pg16:7:190
# text = What the boys were wondering was, would any one answer the knock?
1	What	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	9	nsubj:outer	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	boys	boy	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	nsubj	_	_
4	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
5	wondering	wonder	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	1	acl:relcl	_	_
6	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	cop	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
8	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	_
9	any	any	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
10	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	11	nummod	_	_
11	answer	answer	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	knock	knock	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **wonder** *speech: ask* | past · progressive | the boys |  |  |  |  |  | vn care-88.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |
| 2 | **is** | would · past |  |  |  |  |  | any *property* | tree rules |

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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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