---
title: He thought of those long sunlit hours in the garden-how happy they w… — The Velveteen Rabbit · tree and pragmatics
description: He thought of those long sunlit hours in the garden-how happy they were-and a great sadness came over him. Who acts: Boy, canes, great sadness. 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 188

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He thought of those long sunlit hours in the garden-how happy they were-and a great sadness came over him.

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**Who acts:** Boy, canes, great sadness · **What happens:** think, be, come · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (Boy, canes, great sadness), 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:pg11757:1:188
# text = He thought of those long sunlit hours in the garden-how happy they were-and a great sadness came over him.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	thought	think	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	of	of	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
4	those	that	DET	DT	Number=Plur|PronType=Dem	7	det	_	_
5	long	long	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
6	sunlit	sunlit	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	hours	hour	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obl	_	_
8	in	in	SCONJ	IN	_	13	mark	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
10	garden	garden	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	13	advmod	_	_
13	happy	happy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	ccomp	_	_
14	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
15	were	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	-	-	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
18	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
19	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	20	amod	_	_
20	sadness	sadness	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	nsubj	_	_
21	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
22	over	over	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
23	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **think** *speech: other* | past | Boy |  |  |  | hour |  | vn focus-87.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **be** | past | canes *= cane* |  |  |  |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **come** | past | a great sadness |  |  |  |  | over Boy | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme over he=Initial\_Location |

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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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