---
title: His face grew very flushed, and he talked in his sleep, and his litt… — The Velveteen Rabbit · tree and pragmatics
description: His face grew very flushed, and he talked in his sleep, and his little body was so hot that it burned the Rabbit when he held him close. Who acts: face, Boy, little body, body. A sentence of «The Velveteen Rabbit» by Margery Williams Bianco, Opening, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of ev
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg11757/1/152/)

<!-- 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/) / [The Velveteen Rabbit](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg11757/) / [Opening](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg11757/1/) / 152

# The Velveteen Rabbit, Opening, sentence 152

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
His face grew very flushed, and he talked in his sleep, and his little body was so hot that it burned the Rabbit when he held him close.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** face, Boy, little body, body · **What happens:** grow, flush, talk, be, burn, hold · **To what, where:** sleep, Rabbit

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (face, Boy, little body, body), 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:pg11757:1:152
# text = His face grew very flushed, and he talked in his sleep, and his little body was so hot that it burned the Rabbit when he held him close.
1	His	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	2	nmod:poss	_	_
2	face	face	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	grew	grow	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	very	very	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	flushed	flush	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	3	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
8	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
9	talked	talk	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
10	in	in	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	12	nmod:poss	_	_
12	sleep	sleep	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
15	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	17	nmod:poss	_	_
16	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	amod	_	_
17	body	body	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	nsubj	_	_
18	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	20	cop	_	_
19	so	so	ADV	RB	_	20	advmod	_	_
20	hot	hot	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	conj	_	_
21	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	23	mark	_	_
22	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	23	nsubj	_	_
23	burned	burn	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	20	advcl	_	_
24	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	25	det	_	_
25	Rabbit	rabbit	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	obj	_	_
26	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	28	advmod	_	_
27	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	28	nsubj	_	_
28	held	hold	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	23	advcl	_	_
29	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	28	obj	_	_
30	close	close	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	28	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
31	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **grow** | past | Boy's face |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **flush** | participle | Boy's face *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn hiccup-40.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **talk** | past | Boy |  |  | Boy's sleep |  |  | vn talk-37.5 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **is** | past | Boy's little body |  |  |  |  | hot *property* | tree rules |
| 5 | **burn** | past | body | the Rabbit |  |  |  |  | vn light\_emission-43.1 «NP V NP.theme»: agent=Agent rabbit=Theme |
| 6 | **hold** | past | Boy | Rabbit |  |  |  | close *property* | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent he=Theme |
| 7 | **sleep** |  | Boy |  |  |  |  |  | nom sleep «state intransitive»: poss=agent |

<!-- .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:** «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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 151](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg11757/1/151/)
- next →: [sentence 153](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg11757/1/153/)
- ↑ back to [Opening](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg11757/1/)