---
title: I can neither fly nor swim.” — Peter Pan · tree and pragmatics
description: I can neither fly nor swim.” Who acts: I. 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 276

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I can neither fly nor swim.”

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**Who acts:** I · **What happens:** fly, swim

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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 (I), 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:pg16:9:276
# text = I can neither fly nor swim.”
1	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
3	neither	neither	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
4	fly	fly	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
5	nor	nor	CCONJ	CC	Polarity=Neg	6	cc	_	_
6	swim	swim	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **fly** | can | I |  |  |  |  | neither *property* | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **swim** | infinitive | I *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn run-51.3.2-1 «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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