---
title: Brer Wolf, he see how de lan' lay, he did, en he lay low. — Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings · tree and pragmatics
description: Brer Wolf, he see how de lan' lay, he did, en he lay low. Who acts: Brer, en. A sentence of «Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings» by Joel Chandler Harris, XIII. the Awful Fate of Mr. Wolf, 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/pg2306/16/17/)

<!-- 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/) / [XIII. the Awful Fate of Mr. Wolf](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2306/16/) / 17

# Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings, XIII. the Awful Fate of Mr. Wolf, sentence 17

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Brer Wolf, he see how de lan' lay, he did, en he lay low.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Brer, en · **What happens:** see, lie, do · **To what, where:** de lan, en

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings» by Joel Chandler Harris, XIII. the Awful Fate of Mr. Wolf. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Brer, en), 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:pg2306:16:17
# text = Brer Wolf, he see how de lan' lay, he did, en he lay low.
1	Brer	Brer	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	_
2	Wolf	Wolf	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	1	flat	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
4	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	see	see	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	1	conj	_	_
6	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	7	advmod	_	_
7	de	de	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	lan	lan	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	'	'	PUNCT	''	_	8	punct	_	_
10	lay	lie	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
12	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
13	did	do	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
15	en	en	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	_
16	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
17	lay	lie	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	acl:relcl	_	_
18	low	low	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **see** | present | Brer | de lan |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer lan=Stimulus |
| 2 | **lie** | past | Brer |  |  |  |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **do** | past | Brer | en |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent en=Eventuality |
| 4 | **lie** | past | en | en *not said here* |  |  |  | low *property* | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location en=Theme |

<!-- .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 16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2306/16/16/)
- next →: [sentence 18](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2306/16/18/)
- ↑ back to [XIII. the Awful Fate of Mr. Wolf](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2306/16/)