---
title: There was fierce struggle, in which the cutlass was torn from the pi… — Peter Pan · tree and pragmatics
description: There was fierce struggle, in which the cutlass was torn from the pirate’s grasp. Who acts: fierce struggle, pirate. A sentence of «Peter Pan» by J. M. Barrie, Chapter VIII. THE MERMAIDS’ LAGOON, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Peter Pan, Chapter VIII. THE MERMAIDS’ LAGOON, sentence 212

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There was fierce struggle, in which the cutlass was torn from the pirate’s grasp.

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**Who acts:** fierce struggle, pirate · **What happens:** be, tear, grasp · **To what, where:** cutlass, fierce struggle

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This is a sentence of «Peter Pan» by J. M. Barrie, Chapter VIII. THE MERMAIDS’ LAGOON. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (fierce struggle, pirate), 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:pg16:9:212
# text = There was fierce struggle, in which the cutlass was torn from the pirate’s grasp.
1	There	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	2	expl	_	_
2	was	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	fierce	fierce	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	struggle	struggle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
6	in	in	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	11	obl	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	cutlass	cutlass	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nsubj:pass	_	_
10	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	aux:pass	_	_
11	torn	tear	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	4	acl:relcl	_	_
12	from	from	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	pirate	pirate	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	’s	's	PART	POS	_	14	case	_	_
16	grasp	grasp	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | past | fierce struggle |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **tear** | past · passive |  | the cutlass |  | fierce struggle |  | from the pirate's grasp | vn split-23.2 «NP V NP PP.co-patient»: subject=Patient from grasp=Co-Patient |
| 3 | **grasp** |  | the pirate |  |  |  |  |  | nom grasp «cognition transitive»: poss=agent |

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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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