---
title: The little boy looked puzzled, but he didn't say anything. — Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings · tree and pragmatics
description: The little boy looked puzzled, but he didn't say anything. Who acts: boy. A sentence of «Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings» by Joel Chandler Harris, XXV. How Mr. Rabbit Lost His Fine Bushy Tail, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings, XXV. How Mr. Rabbit Lost His Fine Bushy Tail, sentence 15

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The little boy looked puzzled, but he didn't say anything.

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**Who acts:** boy · **What happens:** puzzle, not say · **To what, where:** little boy, anything · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings» by Joel Chandler Harris, XXV. How Mr. Rabbit Lost His Fine Bushy Tail. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (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:pg2306:28:15
# text = The little boy looked puzzled, but he didn't say anything.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	boy	boy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj:pass	_	_
4	looked	look	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux:pass	_	_
5	puzzled	puzzle	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
7	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
8	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
9	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	n't	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	11	advmod	_	_
11	say	say	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	conj	_	_
12	anything	anything	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	11	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **puzzle** | past · passive |  | the little boy |  |  |  |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: subject=Experiencer |
| 2 | **not** **say** *speech: assert* | past · do-support | boy | anything |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent anything=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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