---
title: The rock was slippery as a ball, and they had to crawl rather than c… — Peter Pan · tree and pragmatics
description: The rock was slippery as a ball, and they had to crawl rather than climb. Who acts: rock, balls. 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 226

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The rock was slippery as a ball, and they had to crawl rather than climb.

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**Who acts:** rock, balls · **What happens:** be, have, crawl, climb

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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 (rock, balls), 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:pg16:9:226
# text = The rock was slippery as a ball, and they had to crawl rather than climb.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	rock	rock	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
4	slippery	slippery	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
5	as	as	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	ball	ball	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
10	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
11	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
12	to	to	PART	TO	_	13	mark	_	_
13	crawl	crawl	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	xcomp	_	_
14	rather	rather	ADV	RB	ExtPos=CCONJ	16	cc	_	_
15	than	than	ADP	IN	_	14	fixed	_	_
16	climb	climb	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | the rock |  |  |  |  | as a ball; slippery *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **have** | past | balls *= ball* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **crawl** | to-infinitive | balls *= ball* *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn run-51.3.2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **climb** | infinitive | balls *= ball* *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn run-51.3.2 «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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