---
title: "Uncle Remus, you know you promised to-day to tell me why the 'Possu… — Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings · tree and pragmatics
description: "Uncle Remus, you know you promised to-day to tell me why the 'Possum has no hair on his tail." Who acts: you, Possum. 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 c
---

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# Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings, XXVII. Why Mr. Possum Has No Hair on His Tail, sentence 27

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"Uncle Remus, you know you promised to-day to tell me why the 'Possum has no hair on his tail."

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**Who acts:** you, Possum · **What happens:** know, promise, tell, have · **To what, where:** Uncle Remus, little boy, hair, tail · **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 (you, Possum), 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:pg2306:30:27
# text = "Uncle Remus, you know you promised to-day to tell me why the 'Possum has no hair on his tail."
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Uncle	uncle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	compound	_	_
3	Remus	Remus	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
5	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
6	know	know	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
8	promised	promise	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	ccomp	_	_
9	to	to	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	day	day	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	_
12	to	to	PART	TO	_	13	mark	_	_
13	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	xcomp	_	_
14	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	13	iobj	_	_
15	why	why	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	19	advmod	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
17	'	'	PUNCT	``	_	19	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	Possum	Possum	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	19	nsubj	_	_
19	has	have	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	13	advcl	_	_
20	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	21	det	_	_
21	hair	hair	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obj	_	_
22	on	on	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
23	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	24	nmod:poss	_	_
24	tail	tail	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **know** *in a quote* | present | you | Uncle Remus |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 2 | **promise** *speech: promise* *in a quote* | past | you |  |  |  | day |  | vn promise-37.13 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **tell** *speech: assert* *not said to happen, in a quote* | to-infinitive | you *not said here* |  | the little boy *= boy* |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent i=Recipient |
| 4 | **have** *in a quote* | present | Possum | no hair |  | Possum's tail |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent hair=Patient |

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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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