---
title: Applying the sand-paper to the axe-helve with gentle vigor, he began. — Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings · tree and pragmatics
description: Applying the sand-paper to the axe-helve with gentle vigor, he began. Who acts: Remus. A sentence of «Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings» by Joel Chandler Harris, XXVIII. the End of Mr. Bear, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings, XXVIII. the End of Mr. Bear, sentence 24

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Applying the sand-paper to the axe-helve with gentle vigor, he began.

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**Who acts:** Remus · **What happens:** apply, begin · **To what, where:** sand paper

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This is a sentence of «Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings» by Joel Chandler Harris, XXVIII. the End of Mr. Bear. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Remus), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Checked tree.** This sentence is in the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3 (`gutenberg:pg2306:1300`): parsed by Mova, then checked and patched by a teacher model under UD validation gates — Mova annot: Rust (en) → Claude Opus (medium) patches; gates UD 2.18.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg2306:31:24
# text = Applying the sand-paper to the axe-helve with gentle vigor, he began.
1	Applying	apply	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	16	advcl	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
3	sand	sand	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	compound	_	_
4	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	3	punct	_	_
5	paper	paper	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	1	obj	_	_
6	to	to	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
8	axe	axe	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	compound	_	_
9	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	8	punct	_	_
10	helve	helve	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	1	obl	_	_
11	with	with	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	gentle	gentle	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
13	vigor	vigor	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	1	obl	_	_
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	1	punct	_	_
15	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
16	began	begin	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	16	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **apply** | gerund | Remus *not said here* | the sand paper |  |  |  | to the axe helve; with gentle vigor | vn use-105.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent paper=Theme |
| 2 | **begin** | past | Remus |  |  |  |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP.eventuality V»: agent=Eventuality |

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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:** the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3, Apache-2.0 OR MIT. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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