---
title: "How was that, Uncle Remus?" asked the little boy. — Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings · tree and pragmatics
description: "How was 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, XVIII. Mr. Rabbit Finds His Match At Last, 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/pg2306/21/4/)

<!-- 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/) / [XVIII. Mr. Rabbit Finds His Match At L…](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2306/21/) / 4

# Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings, XVIII. Mr. Rabbit Finds His Match At Last, sentence 4

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
"How was that, Uncle Remus?" asked the little boy.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Uncle Remus · **What happens:** be, ask · **To what, where:** that, little boy · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings» by Joel Chandler Harris, XVIII. Mr. Rabbit Finds His Match At Last. 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.

<!-- .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:pg2306:21:4
# text = "How was that, Uncle Remus?" asked the little boy.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	How	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	4	advmod	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
4	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	7	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	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}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** *in a quote* | past |  | that |  |  |  |  | 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 |

<!-- .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 3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2306/21/3/)
- next →: [sentence 5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2306/21/5/)
- ↑ back to [XVIII. Mr. Rabbit Finds His Match At Last](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2306/21/)