---
title: Whether the Indians got them from the negroes or from some earlier s… — Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings · tree and pragmatics
description: Whether the Indians got them from the negroes or from some earlier source is equally uncertain. Who acts: Indians, earlier source. 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 71

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Whether the Indians got them from the negroes or from some earlier source is equally uncertain.

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**Who acts:** Indians, earlier source · **What happens:** get, be · **To what, where:** stories, negroes

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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 (Indians, earlier source), 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:pg2306:1:71
# text = Whether the Indians got them from the negroes or from some earlier source is equally uncertain.
1	Whether	whether	SCONJ	IN	_	4	mark	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	Indians	Indian	PROPN	NNPS	Number=Plur	4	nsubj	_	_
4	got	get	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	obj	_	_
6	from	from	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	negroes	negro	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obl	_	_
9	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
10	from	from	SCONJ	IN	_	16	mark	_	_
11	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	13	det	_	_
12	earlier	early	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	13	amod	_	_
13	source	source	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nsubj	_	_
14	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	16	cop	_	_
15	equally	equally	ADV	RB	_	16	advmod	_	_
16	uncertain	uncertain	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **get** | past | the Indians | stories *= story* |  | the negroes |  |  | vn get-13.5.1-1 «NP V NP PP.source»: agent=Agent they=Theme from negro=Source |
| 2 | **is** | present | some earlier source |  |  |  |  | equally, uncertain *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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