---
title: W'at I tell you?" he exclaimed as if addressing a witness concealed… — Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings · tree and pragmatics
description: W'at I tell you?" he exclaimed as if addressing a witness concealed under the bed. " Who acts: I, frown. A sentence of «Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings» by Joel Chandler Harris, XX. How Mr. Rabbit Saved His Meat, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings, XX. How Mr. Rabbit Saved His Meat, sentence 8

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W'at I tell you?" he exclaimed as if addressing a witness concealed under the bed. "

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**Who acts:** I, frown · **What happens:** tell, exclaim, address, conceal · **To what, where:** W'at, you, witness, bed · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings» by Joel Chandler Harris, XX. How Mr. Rabbit Saved His Meat. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I, frown), 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:pg2306:23:8
# text = W'at I tell you?" he exclaimed as if addressing a witness concealed under the bed. "
1	W'at	w'at	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	3	obj	_	_
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	tell	tell	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	8	advcl	_	_
4	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	3	iobj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
7	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
8	exclaimed	exclaim	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	11	mark	_	_
10	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	11	mark	_	_
11	addressing	address	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	8	advcl	_	_
12	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	witness	witness	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	_
14	concealed	conceal	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	13	acl	_	_
15	under	under	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	bed	bed	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
19	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **tell** *speech: assert* | present | I | W'at | you |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent you=Recipient w'at=Topic |
| 2 | **exclaim** *speech: express* *in a quote* | past | frown |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **address** *in a quote* | gerund | frown *not said here* | a witness |  |  |  |  | vn illustrate-25.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent witness=Destination |
| 4 | **conceal** *in a quote* | participle |  | a witness *not said here* |  | the bed |  |  | vn concealment-16 «NP V NP PP.location»: agent=Agent under bed=Location |

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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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