---
title: "What is that, Uncle Remus?" asked the little boy. — Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings · tree and pragmatics
description: "What is that, Uncle Remus?" asked the little boy. Who acts: Uncle Remus. A sentence of «Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings» by Joel Chandler Harris, XVII. Mr. Rabbit Nibbles Up the Butter, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings, XVII. Mr. Rabbit Nibbles Up the Butter, sentence 27

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"What is that, Uncle Remus?" asked the little boy.

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**Who acts:** Uncle Remus · **What happens:** be, ask · **To what, where:** Uncle Remus, little boy · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings» by Joel Chandler Harris, XVII. Mr. Rabbit Nibbles Up the Butter. 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), 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:pg2306:20:27
# text = "What is that, Uncle Remus?" asked the little boy.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	What	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	7	nsubj	_	_
3	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	7	cop	_	_
4	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	7	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
6	Uncle	Uncle	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	7	compound	_	_
7	Remus	Remus	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	7	punct	_	_
10	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
12	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
13	boy	boy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** *in a quote* | present |  | Uncle Remus |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past | Uncle Remus |  | the little boy |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent boy=Recipient |

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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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