---
title: "I am not prepared to form a theory about these stories. — Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings · tree and pragmatics
description: "I am not prepared to form a theory about these stories. 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 57

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"I am not prepared to form a theory about these stories.

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**What happens:** not prepare, form · **To what, where:** Uncle Remus, theory

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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: 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:pg2306:1:57
# text = "I am not prepared to form a theory about these stories.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
3	am	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux:pass	_	_
4	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	5	advmod	_	_
5	prepared	prepare	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
6	to	to	PART	TO	_	7	mark	_	_
7	form	form	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	xcomp	_	_
8	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	theory	theory	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	_
10	about	about	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	these	this	DET	DT	Number=Plur|PronType=Dem	12	det	_	_
12	stories	story	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **prepare** *in a quote* | present · passive |  | Uncle Remus *= remus* |  |  |  |  | vn hire-13.5.3 «NP V NP to be NP»: subject=Theme clause=Attribute |
| 2 | **form** *not said to happen, in a quote* | to-infinitive |  | a theory |  |  |  | about this stories | vn appear-48.1.1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location theory=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:** «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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