---
title: He wished that he could become it without these uncomfortable things… — The Velveteen Rabbit · tree and pragmatics
description: He wished that he could become it without these uncomfortable things happening to him. Who acts: Rabbit, uncomfortable things. 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 53

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He wished that he could become it without these uncomfortable things happening to him.

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**Who acts:** Rabbit, uncomfortable things · **What happens:** wish, become, happen · **To what, where:** magic, Rabbit

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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 (Rabbit, uncomfortable things), 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:pg11757:1:53
# text = He wished that he could become it without these uncomfortable things happening to him.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	wished	wish	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	6	mark	_	_
4	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
5	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
6	become	become	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	advcl	_	_
7	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	obj	_	_
8	without	without	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
9	these	this	DET	DT	Number=Plur|PronType=Dem	11	det	_	_
10	uncomfortable	uncomfortable	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	things	thing	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	obl	_	_
12	happening	happen	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	11	acl	_	_
13	to	to	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
14	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **wish** | past | Rabbit |  |  |  |  |  | vn wish-62 «NP V for NP S\_INF»: agent=Pivot |
| 2 | **become** | could | Rabbit | magic |  |  |  | without this uncomfortable things | vn become-109.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Patient it=Result |
| 3 | **happen** | gerund | this uncomfortable things *not said here* |  | Rabbit |  |  |  | vn occur-48.3-1 «NP 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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