---
title: That was a great many years ago; but once you are Real you can't bec… — The Velveteen Rabbit · tree and pragmatics
description: That was a great many years ago; but once you are Real you can't become unreal again. Who acts: you. 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 48

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That was a great many years ago; but once you are Real you can't become unreal again.

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**Who acts:** you · **What happens:** be, not be

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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 (you), 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:pg11757:1:48
# text = That was a great many years ago; but once you are Real you can't become unreal again.
1	That	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	2	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	cop	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
4	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
5	many	many	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	years	year	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	obl:unmarked	_	_
7	ago	ago	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
9	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
10	once	once	SCONJ	IN	_	13	mark	_	_
11	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
12	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	13	cop	_	_
13	Real	real	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	advcl	_	_
14	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
15	ca	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	n't	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	17	advmod	_	_
17	become	become	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
18	unreal	unreal	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	xcomp	_	_
19	again	again	ADV	RB	_	17	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	17	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | present | you |  |  |  |  | real *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **not** **is** | can · past | you |  |  |  | again | become, unreal *property* | tree rules |

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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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