---
title: And about his little soft nose and his round black eyes there was so… — The Velveteen Rabbit · tree and pragmatics
description: And about his little soft nose and his round black eyes there was something familiar, so that the Boy thought to himself: Who acts: something, Boy. 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 231

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And about his little soft nose and his round black eyes there was something familiar, so that the Boy thought to himself:

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**Who acts:** something, Boy · **What happens:** be, think · **To what, where:** Boy

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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 (something, Boy), 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:pg11757:1:231
# text = And about his little soft nose and his round black eyes there was something familiar, so that the Boy thought to himself:
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
2	about	about	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
3	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	6	nmod:poss	_	_
4	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
5	soft	soft	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	nose	nose	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
8	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	11	nmod:poss	_	_
9	round	round	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
10	black	black	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	eyes	eye	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	conj	_	_
12	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	13	expl	_	_
13	was	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	21	parataxis	_	_
14	something	something	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	13	nsubj	_	_
15	familiar	familiar	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
17	so	so	ADV	RB	_	21	advmod	_	_
18	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	21	mark	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	Boy	Boy	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	21	nsubj	_	_
21	thought	think	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
22	to	to	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
23	himself	himself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	21	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	21	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | past | something |  |  | there |  | about Boy's little soft nose and Boy's round black eyes | vn exist-47.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme about nose=Location |
| 2 | **think** *speech: other* | past | the Boy |  | Boy |  |  |  | vn focus-87.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

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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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