---
title: “Greetings, boys,” he cried, and mechanically they saluted, and then… — Peter Pan · tree and pragmatics
description: “Greetings, boys,” he cried, and mechanically they saluted, and then again was silence. Who acts: Greetings. 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 31

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“Greetings, boys,” he cried, and mechanically they saluted, and then again was silence.

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**Who acts:** Greetings · **What happens:** cry, salute, be · **To what, where:** silence

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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 (Greetings), 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:pg16:7:31
# text = “Greetings, boys,” he cried, and mechanically they saluted, and then again was silence.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Greetings	greeting	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
4	boys	boy	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
7	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
8	cried	cry	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
11	mechanically	mechanically	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	_
12	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
13	saluted	salute	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
16	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	17	advmod	_	_
17	again	again	ADV	RB	_	19	advmod	_	_
18	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	19	cop	_	_
19	silence	silence	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **cry** *speech: express* | past | Greetings and boys |  |  |  |  |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **salute** | past | Greetings *= greeting* |  |  |  |  | mechanically *property* | vn curtsey-40.3.3 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **is a** | past |  | silence |  |  | again |  | 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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