The Velveteen Rabbit, Opening, sentence 223

Instead of dingy velveteen he had brown fur, soft and shiny, his ears twitched by themselves, and his whiskers were so long that they brushed the grass.

Who acts: Rabbit, whiskers · What happens: have, twitch, be, brush · To what, where: brown fur, ears, grass

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

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

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Instead	instead	ADV	ExtPos=ADP	4 velveteen	case
2	of	of	ADP	_	1 Instead	fixed
3	dingy	dingy	ADJ	Degree=Pos	4 velveteen	amod
4	velveteen	velveteen	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 had	obl
5	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	6 had	nsubj
6	had	have	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
7	brown	brown	ADJ	Degree=Pos	8 fur	amod
8	fur	fur	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 had	obj
9	,	,	PUNCT	_	10 soft	punct
10	soft	soft	ADJ	Degree=Pos	8 fur	amod
11	and	and	CCONJ	_	12 shiny	cc
12	shiny	shiny	ADJ	Degree=Pos	10 soft	conj
13	,	,	PUNCT	_	15 ears	punct
14	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	15 ears	nmod:poss
15	ears	ear	NOUN	Number=Plur	8 fur	conj
16	twitched	twitch	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	15 ears	acl
17	by	by	ADP	_	18 themselves	case
18	themselves	themselves	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs Reflex=Yes	16 twitched	obl
19	,	,	PUNCT	_	25 long	punct
20	and	and	CCONJ	_	25 long	cc
21	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	22 whiskers	nmod:poss
22	whiskers	whisker	NOUN	Number=Plur	25 long	nsubj
23	were	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	25 long	cop
24	so	so	ADV	_	25 long	advmod
25	long	long	ADJ	Degree=Pos	6 had	advmod
26	that	that	SCONJ	_	28 brushed	mark
27	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	28 brushed	nsubj
28	brushed	brush	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	25 long	advcl
29	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	30 grass	det
30	grass	grass	NOUN	Number=Sing	28 brushed	obj
31	.	.	PUNCT	_	6 had	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	other	roles by
1	have	past	Rabbit	brown fur and Rabbit's ears	instead dingy velveteen	vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent fur=Patient
2	twitch	participle		Rabbit's ears not said here	by ears = ear	vn body_internal_motion-49.1 «NP V»: agent=Agent
3	is	past	Rabbit's whiskers		long property	tree rules
4	brush	past	whiskers = whisker	the grass		vn spray-9.7-1 «NP V NP.theme»: agent=Agent grass=Theme

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.

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.

This page in Markdown → https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg11757/1/223/