---
title: "I ain't tellin' no tales ter bad chilluns," said Uncle Remus curtly. — Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings · tree and pragmatics
description: "I ain't tellin' no tales ter bad chilluns," said Uncle Remus curtly. Who acts: tales. A sentence of «Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings» by Joel Chandler Harris, VII. Mr. Fox Is Again Victimized, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings, VII. Mr. Fox Is Again Victimized, sentence 2

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"I ain't tellin' no tales ter bad chilluns," said Uncle Remus curtly.

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**Who acts:** tales · **What happens:** not be, say · **To what, where:** tellin · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings» by Joel Chandler Harris, VII. Mr. Fox Is Again Victimized. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (tales), 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:pg2306:10:2
# text = "I ain't tellin' no tales ter bad chilluns," said Uncle Remus curtly.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
3	ai	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	n't	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	5	advmod	_	_
5	tellin	tellin	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	'	'	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
7	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	8	det	_	_
8	tales	tale	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	nsubj	_	_
9	ter	ter	X	FW	_	11	compound	_	_
10	bad	bad	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	chilluns	chillun	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	11	punct	_	_
14	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
15	Uncle	Uncle	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	16	compound	_	_
16	Remus	Remus	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	14	nsubj	_	_
17	curtly	curtly	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	14	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **is a** *in a quote* | present | no tales  ter bad chilluns *= tale* | tellin |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | no tales  ter bad chilluns |  |  |  |  | curtly *property* | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: 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:** «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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