---
title: "Did it come off, Uncle Remus?" asked the little boy, presently. — Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings · tree and pragmatics
description: "Did it come off, Uncle Remus?" asked the little boy, presently. Who acts: pause, little 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 27

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"Did it come off, Uncle Remus?" asked the little boy, presently.

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**Who acts:** pause, little boy · **What happens:** come off, ask · **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 (pause, 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:pg2306:28:27
# text = "Did it come off, Uncle Remus?" asked the little boy, presently.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
3	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	come	come	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	ccomp	_	_
5	off	off	ADP	RP	_	4	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
7	Uncle	Uncle	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	8	compound	_	_
8	Remus	Remus	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	4	vocative	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
11	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
13	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
14	boy	boy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
16	presently	presently	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come off** *in a quote* | past · do-support | pause |  |  |  |  | Uncle Remus *vocative* | vn occur-48.3-2 «NP V ADV»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past | the little boy |  |  |  |  | presently *property* | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=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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