---
title: Whenever the old man had occasion to reprimand the little boy--and t… — Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings · tree and pragmatics
description: Whenever the old man had occasion to reprimand the little boy--and the occasions were frequent--he would relapse into a dignified but stubborn silence. Who acts: old man, occasions, man. A sentence of «Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings» by Joel Chandler Harris, XXVII. Why Mr. Possum Has No Hair
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2306/30/17/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2306/) / [XXVII. Why Mr. Possum Has No Hair on H…](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2306/30/) / 17

# Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings, XXVII. Why Mr. Possum Has No Hair on His Tail, sentence 17

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Whenever the old man had occasion to reprimand the little boy--and the occasions were frequent--he would relapse into a dignified but stubborn silence.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** old man, occasions, man · **What happens:** have, reprimand, be, relapse · **To what, where:** occasion, little boy, dignified silence

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings» by Joel Chandler Harris, XXVII. Why Mr. Possum Has No Hair on His Tail. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (old man, occasions, man), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg2306:30:17
# text = Whenever the old man had occasion to reprimand the little boy--and the occasions were frequent--he would relapse into a dignified but stubborn silence.
1	Whenever	whenever	ADV	WRB	PronType=Rel	0	root	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
3	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
5	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	1	advcl:relcl	_	_
6	occasion	occasion	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	_
7	to	to	PART	TO	_	8	mark	_	_
8	reprimand	reprimand	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	acl	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
10	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	boy	boy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	--	--	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	occasions	occasion	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	nsubj	_	_
16	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	cop	_	_
17	frequent	frequent	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	1	advcl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	--	--	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	nsubj	_	_
20	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	21	aux	_	_
21	relapse	relapse	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	17	conj	_	_
22	into	into	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
23	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	27	det	_	_
24	dignified	dignified	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	27	amod	_	_
25	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	26	cc	_	_
26	stubborn	stubborn	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	24	conj	_	_
27	silence	silence	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	1	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** | past | the old man | occasion |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent occasion=Patient |
| 2 | **reprimand** | to-infinitive | the old man *not said here* | the little boy |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **is** | past | the occasions |  |  |  |  | frequent *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **relapse** | would | man |  |  | a dignified silence |  |  | tree rules |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2306/30/16/)
- next →: [sentence 18](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2306/30/18/)
- ↑ back to [XXVII. Why Mr. Possum Has No Hair on His Tail](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2306/30/)