---
title: That night he was almost too happy to sleep, and so much love stirre… — The Velveteen Rabbit · tree and pragmatics
description: That night he was almost too happy to sleep, and so much love stirred in his little sawdust heart that it almost burst. Who acts: night, heart. 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 86

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That night he was almost too happy to sleep, and so much love stirred in his little sawdust heart that it almost burst.

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**Who acts:** night, heart · **What happens:** be, sleep, stir, burst · **To what, where:** much love, little sawdust heart

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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 (night, heart), 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:pg11757:1:86
# text = That night he was almost too happy to sleep, and so much love stirred in his little sawdust heart that it almost burst.
1	That	that	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	2	det	_	_
2	night	night	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	_
3	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
4	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	cop	_	_
5	almost	almost	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
6	too	too	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
7	happy	happy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
8	to	to	PART	TO	_	9	mark	_	_
9	sleep	sleep	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
12	so	so	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	_
13	much	much	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
14	love	love	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	_
15	stirred	stir	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	14	acl	_	_
16	in	in	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	sawdust	sawdust	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	compound	_	_
20	heart	heart	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obl	_	_
21	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	24	mark	_	_
22	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	24	nsubj	_	_
23	almost	almost	ADV	RB	_	24	advmod	_	_
24	burst	burst	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	20	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | that night |  |  |  |  | much love *obl*; happy *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **sleep** | to-infinitive | that night *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn snooze-40.4-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **stir** | participle |  | much love *not said here* |  | Boy's little sawdust heart |  |  | vn modes\_of\_being\_with\_motion-47.3 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in heart=Location |
| 4 | **burst** | past | heart |  |  |  |  | almost *property* | vn appear-48.1.1 «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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