---
title: Dey er mighty biggity, dem house niggers is, but I notices dat dey d… — Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings · tree and pragmatics
description: Dey er mighty biggity, dem house niggers is, but I notices dat dey don't let nuthin' pass. Who acts: Dey. 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 24

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Dey er mighty biggity, dem house niggers is, but I notices dat dey don't let nuthin' pass.

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**Who acts:** Dey · **What happens:** be, not let · **To what, where:** nuthin pass · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (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:pg2306:30:24
# text = Dey er mighty biggity, dem house niggers is, but I notices dat dey don't let nuthin' pass.
1	Dey	Dey	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	_
2	er	e	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	3	advmod	_	_
3	mighty	mighty	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	biggity	biggity	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	1	list	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
6	dem	dem	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	compound	_	_
7	house	house	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	compound	_	_
8	niggers	nigger	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	1	conj	_	_
9	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	13	cop	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
11	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
12	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
13	notices	notice	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
14	dat	that	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	dey	dey	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	_
16	do	do	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	18	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	n't	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	18	advmod	_	_
18	let	let	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	ccomp	_	_
19	nuthin	nuthin	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	'	'	PUNCT	''	_	19	punct	_	_
21	pass	pass	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	13	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | present | Dey and house niggers |  |  |  |  | notice *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **not** **let** | present · do-support |  | nuthin pass |  |  |  |  | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent pass=Theme |

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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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