---
title: Dey had a big day's work in front un um, en dey fotch der dinner wid… — Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings · tree and pragmatics
description: Dey had a big day's work in front un um, en dey fotch der dinner wid um. Who acts: Dey, big day. 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 3

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Dey had a big day's work in front un um, en dey fotch der dinner wid um.

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**Who acts:** Dey, big day · **What happens:** have, work · **To what, where:** work, front un um

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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 (Dey, big day), 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:pg2306:20:3
# text = Dey had a big day's work in front un um, en dey fotch der dinner wid um.
1	Dey	Dey	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	_
2	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
4	big	big	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	day	day	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	's	's	PART	POS	_	5	case	_	_
7	work	work	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
8	in	in	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
9	front	front	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
10	un	un	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	compound	_	_
11	um	um	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
13	en	en	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	compound	_	_
14	dey	dey	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	compound	_	_
15	fotch	fotch	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	conj	_	_
16	der	d	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	15	amod	_	_
17	dinner	dinner	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	compound	_	_
18	wid	wid	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	amod	_	_
19	um	um	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** | past | Dey | a big day's work and en dey fotch |  | front un um |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent work=Patient |
| 2 | **work** |  | a big day |  |  | front un um |  |  | nom work «act intransitive»: poss=agent in=place |

<!-- .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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