---
title: “They must be swimming back or flying,” the boys concluded. — Peter Pan · tree and pragmatics
description: “They must be swimming back or flying,” the boys concluded. Who acts: boys. 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 251

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“They must be swimming back or flying,” the boys concluded.

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**Who acts:** boys · **What happens:** swim back, fly, conclude · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (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:pg16:9:251
# text = “They must be swimming back or flying,” the boys concluded.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
3	must	must	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	aux	_	_
5	swimming	swim	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	13	ccomp	_	_
6	back	back	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
7	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
8	flying	fly	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	5	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	boys	boy	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	nsubj	_	_
13	concluded	conclude	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	13	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **swim back** *in a quote* | must · progressive | boys *= boy* |  |  |  |  |  | vn run-51.3.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **fly** *in a quote* | gerund | boys *= boy* *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **conclude** | past | the boys |  |  |  |  |  | vn deduce-97.2 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=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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