---
title: Of what use was it to be loved and lose one's beauty and become Real… — The Velveteen Rabbit · tree and pragmatics
description: Of what use was it to be loved and lose one's beauty and become Real if it all ended like this? Who acts: use. 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 191

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Of what use was it to be loved and lose one's beauty and become Real if it all ended like this?

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**Who acts:** use · **What happens:** be, love, lose, become, end · **To what, where:** wood, use, beauty

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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 (use), 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:pg11757:1:191
# text = Of what use was it to be loved and lose one's beauty and become Real if it all ended like this?
1	Of	of	ADP	IN	_	2	case	_	_
2	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	0	root	_	_
3	use	use	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nsubj:pass	_	_
4	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
5	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nmod	_	_
6	to	to	PART	TO	_	8	mark	_	_
7	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	aux:pass	_	_
8	loved	love	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	2	acl:relcl	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
10	lose	lose	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	conj	_	_
11	one	one	PRON	PRP	Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	's	's	PART	POS	_	11	case	_	_
13	beauty	beauty	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
15	become	become	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	conj	_	_
16	Real	real	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	xcomp	_	_
17	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	20	mark	_	_
18	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
19	all	all	ADV	RB	_	20	advmod	_	_
20	ended	end	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	advcl	_	_
21	like	like	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
22	this	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	20	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past |  | wood |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **love** | to-infinitive · passive |  | use |  |  |  |  | vn admire-31.2-1 «NP V NP»: subject=Stimulus |
| 3 | **lose** | infinitive |  | one's beauty |  |  |  |  | vn succeed-74-3-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent beauty=Eventuality |
| 4 | **become** | infinitive |  |  |  |  |  | real *property* | vn become-109.1-1-1 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Patient |
| 5 | **end** *a condition, not said to happen* | past | use |  |  |  |  | like this; all *property* | vn stop-55.4-1-1 «NP.eventuality V»: agent=Eventuality |

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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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