---
title: "Well, Uncle Remus, they called me," said the little boy, in a penit… — Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings · tree and pragmatics
description: "Well, Uncle Remus, they called me," said the little boy, in a penitent tone. ' Who acts: axe, little boy. 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 3

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"Well, Uncle Remus, they called me," said the little boy, in a penitent tone. '

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**Who acts:** axe, little boy · **What happens:** call, say · **To what, where:** little boy · **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 (axe, 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:pg2306:30:3
# text = "Well, Uncle Remus, they called me," said the little boy, in a penitent tone. '
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Well	well	INTJ	UH	_	8	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
4	Uncle	Uncle	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	compound	_	_
5	Remus	Remus	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	2	vocative	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
7	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
8	called	call	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	advcl	_	_
9	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	8	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	8	punct	_	_
12	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
14	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
15	boy	boy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
17	in	in	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
18	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
19	penitent	penitent	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	compound	_	_
20	tone	tone	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	20	punct	_	_
22	'	'	PUNCT	''	_	20	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **call** *in a quote* | past | axe |  | the little boy *= boy* |  |  |  | vn initiate\_communication-37.4.2-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent i=Recipient |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the little boy |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |

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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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