---
title: Then there is the story of how the tortoise pretended that he was st… — Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings · tree and pragmatics
description: Then there is the story of how the tortoise pretended that he was stronger than the tapir. Who acts: story, tortoise. A sentence of «Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings» by Joel Chandler Harris, Dear Frost:, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings, Dear Frost:, sentence 40

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Then there is the story of how the tortoise pretended that he was stronger than the tapir.

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**Who acts:** story, tortoise · **What happens:** be, pretend

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This is a sentence of «Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings» by Joel Chandler Harris, Dear Frost:. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (story, tortoise), 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:pg2306:1:40
# text = Then there is the story of how the tortoise pretended that he was stronger than the tapir.
1	Then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	3	advmod	_	_
2	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	3	expl	_	_
3	is	be	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	story	story	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
6	of	of	SCONJ	IN	_	10	mark	_	_
7	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	10	advmod	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	tortoise	tortoise	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	_
10	pretended	pretend	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	acl	_	_
11	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	14	mark	_	_
12	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
13	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	cop	_	_
14	stronger	strong	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	10	xcomp	_	_
15	than	than	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	tapir	tapir	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | present | the story |  |  | there | then |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **pretend** | past | the tortoise |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **is** | past | tortoise |  |  |  |  | than the tapir; strong *property* | tree rules |

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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:** «Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings» by Joel Chandler Harris, Project Gutenberg book 2306 (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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