---
title: He was so old that his brown coat was bald in patches and showed the… — The Velveteen Rabbit · tree and pragmatics
description: He was so old that his brown coat was bald in patches and showed the seams underneath, and most of the hairs in his tail had been pulled out to string bead necklaces. Who acts: Horse, brown coat. A sentence of «The Velveteen Rabbit» by Margery Williams Bianco, Opening, with its dependency tree and t
---

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# The Velveteen Rabbit, Opening, sentence 25

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He was so old that his brown coat was bald in patches and showed the seams underneath, and most of the hairs in his tail had been pulled out to string bead necklaces.

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**Who acts:** Horse, brown coat · **What happens:** be, show, pull out · **To what, where:** patches, seams, most

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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 (Horse, brown coat), 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:pg11757:1:25
# text = He was so old that his brown coat was bald in patches and showed the seams underneath, and most of the hairs in his tail had been pulled out to string bead necklaces.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
3	so	so	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
4	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
5	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	10	mark	_	_
6	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
7	brown	brown	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	coat	coat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	_
9	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	cop	_	_
10	bald	bald	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	advcl	_	_
11	in	in	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	patches	patch	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	obl	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
14	showed	show	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	seams	seam	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	obj	_	_
17	underneath	underneath	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	29	punct	_	_
19	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	29	cc	_	_
20	most	most	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	29	nsubj	_	_
21	of	of	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
22	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
23	hairs	hair	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	20	nmod	_	_
24	in	in	ADP	IN	_	26	case	_	_
25	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	26	nmod:poss	_	_
26	tail	tail	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	nmod	_	_
27	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	29	aux	_	_
28	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	29	aux:pass	_	_
29	pulled	pull	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	14	parataxis	_	_
30	out	out	ADP	RP	_	29	compound:prt	_	_
31	to	to	PART	TO	_	34	mark	_	_
32	string	string	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	33	compound	_	_
33	bead	bead	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	34	compound	_	_
34	necklaces	necklace	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	29	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
35	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | Horse |  |  |  |  | old *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **is** | past | Horse's brown coat |  |  | patches |  | bald *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **show** | past | Horse *not said here* | the seams |  |  |  | underneath *property* | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent seam=Recipient |
| 4 | **pull out** | past · perfect · passive |  | most of the hairs in Horse's tail |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

<!-- .note -->
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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