---
title: "Oh, well den!" exclaimed the old man, "chilluns can't speck ter kno… — Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings · tree and pragmatics
description: "Oh, well den!" exclaimed the old man, "chilluns can't speck ter know all 'bout eve'ything 'fo' dey git some res'. Who acts: den, chilluns, ter. A sentence of «Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings» by Joel Chandler Harris, X. Mr. Terrapin Appears Upon the Scene, with its dependency tree and the pr
---

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# Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings, X. Mr. Terrapin Appears Upon the Scene, sentence 53

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"Oh, well den!" exclaimed the old man, "chilluns can't speck ter know all 'bout eve'ything 'fo' dey git some res'.

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**Who acts:** den, chilluns, ter · **What happens:** exclaim, not speck, know, eve'yth · **To what, where:** old man · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings» by Joel Chandler Harris, X. Mr. Terrapin Appears Upon the Scene. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (den, chilluns, ter), 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:pg2306:13:53
# text = "Oh, well den!" exclaimed the old man, "chilluns can't speck ter know all 'bout eve'ything 'fo' dey git some res'.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Oh	oh	INTJ	UH	_	5	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
4	well	well	INTJ	UH	_	5	discourse	_	_
5	den	den	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
8	exclaimed	exclaim	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
10	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
13	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	17	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	chilluns	chillun	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	nsubj	_	_
15	ca	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	n't	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	17	advmod	_	_
17	speck	speck	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	conj	_	_
18	ter	ter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	nsubj	_	_
19	know	know	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	17	ccomp	_	_
20	all	all	ADV	RB	_	21	advmod	_	_
21	'	'	PUNCT	''	_	19	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	bout	bout	SCONJ	IN	_	23	mark	_	_
23	eve'ything	eve'yth	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	19	ccomp	_	_
24	'	'	PUNCT	''	_	23	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	fo	for	ADP	IN	Abbr=Yes	28	case	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	'	'	PUNCT	``	_	28	punct	_	_
27	dey	dey	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	28	compound	_	_
28	git	git	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	obl	_	_
29	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	30	det	_	_
30	res	re	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	28	appos	_	SpaceAfter=No
31	'	'	PUNCT	''	_	30	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
32	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **exclaim** *speech: express* | past | den | the old man |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent man=Topic |
| 2 | **not** **speck** *in a quote* | can | chilluns |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **know** *in a quote* | present | ter |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 4 | **eve'yth** *in a quote* | gerund |  |  |  |  |  | for dey git | tree rules |

<!-- .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.

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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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