---
title: But the little Rabbit sat quite still for a moment and never moved. — The Velveteen Rabbit · tree and pragmatics
description: But the little Rabbit sat quite still for a moment and never moved. Who acts: little 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 218

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But the little Rabbit sat quite still for a moment and never moved.

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**Who acts:** little Rabbit · **What happens:** sit, not move

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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 (little 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:pg11757:1:218
# text = But the little Rabbit sat quite still for a moment and never moved.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
3	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	Rabbit	Rabbit	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
5	sat	sit	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	quite	quite	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
7	still	still	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
8	for	for	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	moment	moment	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
12	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	13	advmod	_	_
13	moved	move	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sit** | past | the little Rabbit |  |  |  | still; moment |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **not** **move** | past | the little Rabbit *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn roll-51.3.1 «NP.theme V»: agent=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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