---
title: "Papa says there ain't any witches," the little boy interrupted. — Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings · tree and pragmatics
description: "Papa says there ain't any witches," the little boy interrupted. Who acts: Papa. A sentence of «Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings» by Joel Chandler Harris, XXXI. a Plantation Witch, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings, XXXI. a Plantation Witch, sentence 40

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"Papa says there ain't any witches," the little boy interrupted.

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**Who acts:** Papa · **What happens:** say, interrupt · **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, XXXI. a Plantation Witch. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Papa), 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:pg2306:34:40
# text = "Papa says there ain't any witches," the little boy interrupted.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Papa	Papa	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	says	say	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	there	there	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	3	advmod	_	_
5	ai	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Style=Vrnc|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	n't	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	5	advmod	_	_
7	any	any	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	8	det	_	_
8	witches	witch	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	13	punct	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
12	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
13	boy	boy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	conj	_	_
14	interrupted	interrupt	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	13	acl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | present | Papa |  |  | there |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **interrupt** | participle |  | the little boy *not said here* |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

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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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