---
title: "Did the Bear have a 'simmon orchard, Uncle Remus?" the little boy a… — Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings · tree and pragmatics
description: "Did the Bear have a 'simmon orchard, Uncle Remus?" the little boy asked. Who acts: 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 33

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"Did the Bear have a 'simmon orchard, Uncle Remus?" the little boy asked.

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**Who acts:** little boy · **What happens:** do, have, ask · **To what, where:** Bear, simmon orchard · **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 (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:pg2306:30:33
# text = "Did the Bear have a 'simmon orchard, Uncle Remus?" the little boy asked.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Did	do	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	advcl	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	Bear	bear	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
5	have	have	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	18	ccomp	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
7	'	'	PUNCT	``	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	simmon	simmon	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	orchard	orchard	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
11	Uncle	Uncle	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	12	compound	_	_
12	Remus	Remus	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	9	appos	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
16	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	amod	_	_
17	boy	boy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nsubj	_	_
18	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	18	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **do** *in a quote* | past |  | the Bear |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent bear=Eventuality |
| 2 | **have** *in a quote* | present |  | a simmon orchard |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent orchard=Patient |
| 3 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past | the little boy |  |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |

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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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