---
title: The sharp eyes of the old man saw it at once. — Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings · tree and pragmatics
description: The sharp eyes of the old man saw it at once. Who acts: sharp eyes. A sentence of «Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings» by Joel Chandler Harris, XXVII. Why Mr. Possum Has No Hair on His Tail, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings, XXVII. Why Mr. Possum Has No Hair on His Tail, sentence 19

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The sharp eyes of the old man saw it at once.

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**Who acts:** sharp eyes · **What happens:** see · **To what, where:** piece

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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 (sharp eyes), 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:pg2306:30:19
# text = The sharp eyes of the old man saw it at once.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	sharp	sharp	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	eyes	eye	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	nsubj	_	_
4	of	of	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
6	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nmod	_	_
8	saw	see	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	obj	_	_
10	at	at	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
11	once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **see** | past | the sharp eyes of the old man | piece |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer it=Stimulus |

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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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