---
title: "Brer Rabbit, he sot down sorter keerless like, en begin fer ter scr… — Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings · tree and pragmatics
description: "Brer Rabbit, he sot down sorter keerless like, en begin fer ter scratch one year like a man studyin' 'bout sump'n. Who acts: Rabbit, Brer Rabbit, fer ter. A sentence of «Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings» by Joel Chandler Harris, XXIX. Mr. Fox Gets Into Serious Business, with its dependency tr
---

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# Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings, XXIX. Mr. Fox Gets Into Serious Business, sentence 41

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"Brer Rabbit, he sot down sorter keerless like, en begin fer ter scratch one year like a man studyin' 'bout sump'n.

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**Who acts:** Rabbit, Brer Rabbit, fer ter · **What happens:** sot down, begin, scratch · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings» by Joel Chandler Harris, XXIX. Mr. Fox Gets Into Serious Business. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Rabbit, Brer Rabbit, fer ter), 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:pg2306:32:41
# text = "Brer Rabbit, he sot down sorter keerless like, en begin fer ter scratch one year like a man studyin' 'bout sump'n.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Brer	Brer	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	compound	_	_
3	Rabbit	Rabbit	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
5	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
6	sot	sot	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	appos	_	_
7	down	down	ADP	RP	_	6	compound:prt	_	_
8	sorter	sorter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	conj	_	_
9	keerless	keerless	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	conj	_	_
10	like	like	INTJ	UH	_	6	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
12	en	en	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	conj	_	_
13	begin	begin	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
14	fer	f	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	15	amod	_	_
15	ter	ter	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	nsubj	_	_
16	scratch	scratch	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	13	ccomp	_	_
17	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	18	nummod	_	_
18	year	year	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl:unmarked	_	_
19	like	like	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
20	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
21	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	compound	_	_
22	studyin	studyin	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	'	'	PUNCT	''	_	22	punct	_	_
24	'	'	PUNCT	''	_	22	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	bout	bout	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	26	compound	_	_
26	sump'n	sump'n	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	13	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sot down** *in a quote* |  | Rabbit |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **begin** *in a quote* | present | Brer Rabbit and en |  |  |  |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 3 | **scratch** *in a quote* | present | fer ter |  |  |  | year | like a man studyin and bout sump'n | vn scribble-25.2-1 «NP V»: 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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