---
title: It was so peculiar, indeed, that the little boy asked: — Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings · tree and pragmatics
description: It was so peculiar, indeed, that the little boy asked: Who acts: justice, little boy. A sentence of «Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings» by Joel Chandler Harris, XII. Mr. Fox Tackles Old Man Tarrypin, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings, XII. Mr. Fox Tackles Old Man Tarrypin, sentence 39

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It was so peculiar, indeed, that the little boy asked:

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**Who acts:** justice, little boy · **What happens:** be, ask · **To what, where:** peculiar

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This is a sentence of «Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings» by Joel Chandler Harris, XII. Mr. Fox Tackles Old Man Tarrypin. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (justice, little boy), 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:pg2306:15:39
# text = It was so peculiar, indeed, that the little boy asked:
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
3	so	so	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
4	peculiar	peculiar	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
6	indeed	indeed	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
8	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	12	mark	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
10	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	boy	boy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nsubj	_	_
12	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | justice | peculiar |  |  |  | indeed *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past | the little boy |  |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V»: 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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