---
title: That was a dreadful question, for the Velveteen Rabbit had no hind l… — The Velveteen Rabbit · tree and pragmatics
description: That was a dreadful question, for the Velveteen Rabbit had no hind legs at all! Who acts: That, Velveteen Rabbit. A sentence of «The Velveteen Rabbit» by Margery Williams Bianco, Opening, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Velveteen Rabbit, Opening, sentence 109

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That was a dreadful question, for the Velveteen Rabbit had no hind legs at all!

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**Who acts:** That, Velveteen Rabbit · **What happens:** be, have · **To what, where:** dreadful question, hind legs, all

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This is a sentence of «The Velveteen Rabbit» by Margery Williams Bianco, Opening. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (That, Velveteen Rabbit), 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:pg11757:1:109
# text = That was a dreadful question, for the Velveteen Rabbit had no hind legs at all!
1	That	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	5	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
4	dreadful	dreadful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	question	question	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
7	for	for	SCONJ	IN	_	11	mark	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
9	Velveteen	Velveteen	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	10	compound	_	_
10	Rabbit	Rabbit	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	_
11	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
12	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	14	det	_	_
13	hind	hind	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
14	legs	leg	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	obj	_	_
15	at	at	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
16	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | That | a dreadful question |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **have** | past | the Velveteen Rabbit | no hind legs |  | all |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent leg=Patient |

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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:** «The Velveteen Rabbit» by Margery Williams Bianco, Project Gutenberg book 11757 (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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