---
title: “The captain!” said the pirates, staring at each other in surprise. — Peter Pan · tree and pragmatics
description: “The captain!” said the pirates, staring at each other in surprise. Who acts: captain. 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 70

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“The captain!” said the pirates, staring at each other in surprise.

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**Who acts:** captain · **What happens:** say, stare · **To what, where:** pirates · **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 (captain), 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:pg16:9:70
# text = “The captain!” said the pirates, staring at each other in surprise.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	captain	captain	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
6	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	pirates	pirate	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
10	staring	stare	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	6	advcl	_	_
11	at	at	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	each	each	DET	DT	ExtPos=PRON|PronType=Rcp	10	obl	_	_
13	other	other	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	fixed	_	_
14	in	in	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	surprise	surprise	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the captain | the pirates |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent pirate=Topic |
| 2 | **stare** | gerund | the captain *not said here* |  |  |  |  | in surprise; at each | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent at each=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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