---
title: They opened their mouths, but the cheers would not come. — Peter Pan · tree and pragmatics
description: They opened their mouths, but the cheers would not come. Who acts: Tootles, cheers. 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 34

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They opened their mouths, but the cheers would not come.

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**Who acts:** Tootles, cheers · **What happens:** open, not come · **To what, where:** mouths

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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 (Tootles, cheers), 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:pg16:7:34
# text = They opened their mouths, but the cheers would not come.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	opened	open	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	4	nmod:poss	_	_
4	mouths	mouth	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
6	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	cheers	cheer	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	nsubj	_	_
9	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
10	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	11	advmod	_	_
11	come	come	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **open** | past | Tootles *= tootle* | Tootles's mouths |  |  |  |  | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location mouth=Theme |
| 2 | **not** **come** | would | the cheers |  |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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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