---
title: And when the Boy dropped off to sleep, the Rabbit would snuggle down… — The Velveteen Rabbit · tree and pragmatics
description: And when the Boy dropped off to sleep, the Rabbit would snuggle down close under his little warm chin and dream, with the Boy's hands clasped close round him all night long. Who acts: Boy, Rabbit. A sentence of «The Velveteen Rabbit» by Margery Williams Bianco, Opening, with its dependency tree and 
---

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# The Velveteen Rabbit, Opening, sentence 68

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And when the Boy dropped off to sleep, the Rabbit would snuggle down close under his little warm chin and dream, with the Boy's hands clasped close round him all night long.

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**Who acts:** Boy, Rabbit · **What happens:** drop off, sleep, snuggle down, dream, clasp · **To what, where:** little warm chin, hands

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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 (Boy, Rabbit), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Checked tree.** This sentence is in the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3 (`gutenberg:pg11757:51`): parsed by Mova, then checked and patched by a teacher model under UD validation gates — Mova annot: Rust (en) → Claude Opus (medium) patches; gates UD 2.18.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg11757:1:68
# text = And when the Boy dropped off to sleep, the Rabbit would snuggle down close under his little warm chin and dream, with the Boy's hands clasped close round him all night long.
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
2	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	5	advmod	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	Boy	Boy	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
5	dropped	drop	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	advcl	_	_
6	off	off	ADP	RP	_	5	compound:prt	_	_
7	to	to	PART	TO	_	8	mark	_	_
8	sleep	sleep	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	advcl	_	_
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	Rabbit	Rabbit	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	_
12	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
13	snuggle	snuggle	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
14	down	down	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	_
15	close	close	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	_
16	under	under	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
17	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	20	nmod:poss	_	_
18	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	20	amod	_	_
19	warm	warm	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	20	amod	_	_
20	chin	chin	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	_
21	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
22	dream	dream	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	conj	_	_
23	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	29	punct	_	_
24	with	with	SCONJ	IN	_	29	mark	_	_
25	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	26	det	_	_
26	Boy	Boy	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	28	nmod:poss	_	_
27	's	's	PART	POS	_	26	case	_	_
28	hands	hand	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	29	nsubj:pass	_	_
29	clasped	clasp	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	22	advcl	_	_
30	close	close	ADV	RB	_	29	advmod	_	_
31	round	round	ADP	IN	_	32	case	_	_
32	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	29	obl	_	_
33	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	34	det	_	_
34	night	night	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	35	obl:unmarked	_	_
35	long	long	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	29	advmod	_	_
36	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	13	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **drop off** | past | the Boy |  |  |  |  |  | vn roll-51.3.1 «NP.theme V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **sleep** | to-infinitive | the Boy *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn snooze-40.4-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **snuggle down** | would | the Rabbit |  |  | Rabbit's little warm chin |  | close, down *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **dream** | infinitive | the Rabbit *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn cognize-85 «NP V PP.topic»: agent=Agent |
| 5 | **clasp** | participle · passive |  | the Boy's hands |  |  |  | round Rabbit; close, long *property* | vn hold-15.1-1 «NP V NP»: subject=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:** the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3, Apache-2.0 OR MIT. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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