---
title: “Shall we swim or fly, Peter?” — Peter Pan · tree and pragmatics
description: “Shall we swim or fly, Peter?” Who acts: we. A sentence of «Peter Pan» by J. M. Barrie, Chapter VIII. THE MERMAIDS’ LAGOON, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg16/9/268/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Peter Pan](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg16/) / [Chapter VIII. THE MERMAIDS’ LAGOON](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg16/9/) / 268

# Peter Pan, Chapter VIII. THE MERMAIDS’ LAGOON, sentence 268

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
“Shall we swim or fly, Peter?”

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** we · **What happens:** swim, fly · **To what, where:** Peter

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (we), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg16:9:268
# text = “Shall we swim or fly, Peter?”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Shall	shall	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
3	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	swim	swim	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
5	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
6	fly	fly	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
8	Peter	Peter	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **swim** *in a quote* | shall | we | Peter |  |  |  |  | vn run-51.3.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **fly** *in a quote* | infinitive | we *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 267](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg16/9/267/)
- next →: [sentence 269](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg16/9/269/)
- ↑ back to [Chapter VIII. THE MERMAIDS’ LAGOON](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg16/9/)