---
title: "When he dropped off of the water-shelf on the Fox's head," suggeste… — Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings · tree and pragmatics
description: "When he dropped off of the water-shelf on the Fox's head," suggested the little boy. Who acts: Brer, little boy. 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.
---

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# Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings, XVIII. Mr. Rabbit Finds His Match At Last, sentence 6

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"When he dropped off of the water-shelf on the Fox's head," suggested the little boy.

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**Who acts:** Brer, little boy · **What happens:** drop off, suggest · **To what, where:** water shelf · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (Brer, 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:pg2306:21:6
# text = "When he dropped off of the water-shelf on the Fox's head," suggested the little boy.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	When	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	4	advmod	_	_
3	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	dropped	drop	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	18	parataxis	_	_
5	off	off	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
6	of	of	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
8	water	water	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	shelf	shelf	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	_
11	on	on	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	Fox	Fox	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	15	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	's	's	PART	POS	_	13	case	_	_
15	head	head	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
18	suggested	suggest	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
20	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	21	amod	_	_
21	boy	boy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	18	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **drop off** *in a quote* | past | Brer | the water shelf on the Fox's head |  |  |  |  | vn put\_direction-9.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent shelf=Theme |
| 2 | **suggest** *speech: suggest* | past | the little boy |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |

<!-- .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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