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title: They come and called me, and said they had a pistol and some powder… — Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings · tree and pragmatics
description: They come and called me, and said they had a pistol and some powder over there." Who acts: axe, some. 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 4

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They come and called me, and said they had a pistol and some powder over there."

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**Who acts:** axe, some · **What happens:** come, call, say, have, powder · **To what, where:** me, pistol · **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, some), 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:pg2306:30:4
# text = They come and called me, and said they had a pistol and some powder over there."
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	come	come	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
4	called	call	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
5	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
8	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
9	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
10	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	ccomp	_	_
11	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	pistol	pistol	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
14	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	15	nsubj	_	_
15	powder	powder	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	10	conj	_	_
16	over	over	ADV	RB	_	17	advmod	_	_
17	there	there	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	15	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come** | present | axe |  |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **call** | past | axe *not said here* |  | me |  |  |  | vn initiate\_communication-37.4.2-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent i=Recipient |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | axe *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 4 | **have** | past | axe | a pistol |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent pistol=Patient |
| 5 | **powder** | present | some |  |  | there |  |  | vn braid-41.2.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .note -->
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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