---
title: Dey ain't no smart man, 'cep' w'at dey's a smarter. — Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings · tree and pragmatics
description: Dey ain't no smart man, 'cep' w'at dey's a smarter. Who acts: cep w'at dey. A sentence of «Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings» by Joel Chandler Harris, XXI. Mr. Rabbit Meets His Match Again, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings, XXI. Mr. Rabbit Meets His Match Again, sentence 7

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Dey ain't no smart man, 'cep' w'at dey's a smarter.

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**Who acts:** cep w'at dey · **What happens:** be

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This is a sentence of «Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings» by Joel Chandler Harris, XXI. Mr. Rabbit Meets His Match Again. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (cep w'at dey), 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:pg2306:24:7
# text = Dey ain't no smart man, 'cep' w'at dey's a smarter.
1	Dey	Dey	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	_
2	ai	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	n't	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	6	advmod	_	_
4	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	6	det	_	_
5	smart	smart	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
8	'	'	PUNCT	``	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	cep	cep	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	'	'	PUNCT	''	_	9	punct	_	_
11	w'at	w'at	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	compound	_	_
12	dey	dey	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	's	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	15	cop	_	_
14	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	smarter	smart	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	2	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | present | cep w'at dey |  |  |  |  | smart *property* | tree rules |

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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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