---
title: "But, Uncle Remus, I ain't bad," said the little boy plaintively. — Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings · tree and pragmatics
description: "But, Uncle Remus, I ain't bad," said the little boy plaintively. Who acts: Uncle Remus, little boy. 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.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2306/10/3/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2306/) / [VII. Mr. Fox Is Again Victimized](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2306/10/) / 3

# Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings, VII. Mr. Fox Is Again Victimized, sentence 3

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
"But, Uncle Remus, I ain't bad," said the little boy plaintively.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Uncle Remus, little boy · **What happens:** not be, say · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (Uncle Remus, little boy), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg2306:10:3
# text = "But, Uncle Remus, I ain't bad," said the little boy plaintively.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
4	Uncle	Uncle	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	compound	_	_
5	Remus	Remus	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
7	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
8	ai	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	10	cop	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	n't	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	10	advmod	_	_
10	bad	bad	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	10	punct	_	_
13	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
15	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	amod	_	_
16	boy	boy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	_
17	plaintively	plaintively	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	13	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **is** *in a quote* | present | Uncle Remus |  |  |  |  | bad *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the little boy |  |  |  |  | plaintively *property* | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2306/10/2/)
- next →: [sentence 4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2306/10/4/)
- ↑ back to [VII. Mr. Fox Is Again Victimized](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2306/10/)