---
title: He had the potatoes to dig and the green peas to gather, but next mo… — The Velveteen Rabbit · tree and pragmatics
description: He had the potatoes to dig and the green peas to gather, but next morning he promised to come quite early and burn the whole lot. Who acts: Rabbit, potatoes. 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 180

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He had the potatoes to dig and the green peas to gather, but next morning he promised to come quite early and burn the whole lot.

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**Who acts:** Rabbit, potatoes · **What happens:** have, dig, gather, promise, come, burn · **To what, where:** potatoes, whole lot

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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 (Rabbit, potatoes), 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:pg11757:1:180
# text = He had the potatoes to dig and the green peas to gather, but next morning he promised to come quite early and burn the whole lot.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	potatoes	potato	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obj	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
6	dig	dig	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	xcomp	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
9	green	green	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	peas	pea	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	conj	_	_
11	to	to	PART	TO	_	12	mark	_	_
12	gather	gather	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	acl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
14	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
15	next	next	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	amod	_	_
16	morning	morning	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obl:unmarked	_	_
17	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
18	promised	promise	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
19	to	to	PART	TO	_	20	mark	_	_
20	come	come	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	18	xcomp	_	_
21	quite	quite	ADV	RB	_	22	advmod	_	_
22	early	early	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	20	advmod	_	_
23	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	24	cc	_	_
24	burn	burn	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	20	conj	_	_
25	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	27	det	_	_
26	whole	whole	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	27	amod	_	_
27	lot	lot	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** | past | Rabbit | the potatoes |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **dig** | to-infinitive | the potatoes *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn create-26.4-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **gather** | to-infinitive | the potatoes *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn herd-47.5.2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **promise** *speech: promise* | past | Rabbit |  |  |  | morning |  | vn promise-37.13 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 5 | **come** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | Rabbit *not said here* |  |  |  |  | early *property* | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 6 | **burn** | infinitive | Rabbit *not said here* | the whole lot |  |  |  |  | vn light\_emission-43.1 «NP V NP.theme»: agent=Agent lot=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:** «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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