---
title: Peter may have been about to crow, but his face puckered in a whistl… — Peter Pan · tree and pragmatics
description: Peter may have been about to crow, but his face puckered in a whistle of surprise instead. Who acts: Peter, face, surprise. 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 85

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Peter may have been about to crow, but his face puckered in a whistle of surprise instead.

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**Who acts:** Peter, face, surprise · **What happens:** be, pucker, whistle · **To what, where:** whistle

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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 (Peter, face, surprise), 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:pg16:9:85
# text = Peter may have been about to crow, but his face puckered in a whistle of surprise instead.
1	Peter	Peter	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	_
2	may	may	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
3	have	have	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	aux	_	_
4	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	7	cop	_	_
5	about	about	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
6	to	to	PART	TO	_	7	mark	_	_
7	crow	crow	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
9	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
10	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	11	nmod:poss	_	_
11	face	face	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nsubj	_	_
12	puckered	pucker	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	7	conj	_	_
13	in	in	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	whistle	whistle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	_
16	of	of	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	surprise	surprise	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nmod	_	_
18	instead	instead	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | may · perfect | Peter |  |  |  |  | about, crow *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **pucker** | participle | Peter's face |  |  | a whistle of surprise |  | instead *property* | vn tingle-40.8.2 «NP V»: agent=Patient |
| 3 | **whistle** |  | surprise |  |  |  |  |  | nom whistle «event intransitive»: of=agent |

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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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