---
title: They stared at him, and the little Rabbit stared back. — The Velveteen Rabbit · tree and pragmatics
description: They stared at him, and the little Rabbit stared back. Who acts: people, little Rabbit. 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 98

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They stared at him, and the little Rabbit stared back.

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**Who acts:** people, little Rabbit · **What happens:** stare, stare back

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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 (people, little Rabbit), 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:pg11757:1:98
# text = They stared at him, and the little Rabbit stared back.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	stared	stare	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	at	at	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
4	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
8	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	Rabbit	Rabbit	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	_
10	stared	stare	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	_
11	back	back	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **stare** | past | people |  |  |  |  | at Rabbit | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent at he=Theme |
| 2 | **stare back** | past | the little Rabbit |  |  |  |  |  | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent |

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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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