---
title: "And what about Brother Possum?" asked the little boy. — Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings · tree and pragmatics
description: "And what about Brother Possum?" asked the little boy. Who acts: little boy. 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 59

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"And what about Brother Possum?" asked the little boy.

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**Who acts:** little boy · **What happens:** ask

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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 (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:pg2306:20:59
# text = "And what about Brother Possum?" asked the little boy.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	3	cc	_	_
3	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	9	obj	_	_
4	about	about	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	Brother	Brother	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	6	compound	_	_
6	Possum	Possum	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
9	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
11	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
12	boy	boy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past | the little boy |  |  |  |  | about Brother Possum | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP PP.topic»: agent=Agent what=Recipient about possum=Topic |

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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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