---
title: Den he lay down en watch fer ter see w'at de news wuz gwineter be. — Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings · tree and pragmatics
description: Den he lay down en watch fer ter see w'at de news wuz gwineter be. Who acts: Den. 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 53

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Den he lay down en watch fer ter see w'at de news wuz gwineter be.

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**Who acts:** Den · **What happens:** lie down, see, be · **To what, where:** fer ter, w'at · **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 (Den), 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:pg2306:34:53
# text = Den he lay down en watch fer ter see w'at de news wuz gwineter be.
1	Den	den	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	lay	lie	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	down	down	ADP	RP	_	3	compound:prt	_	_
5	en	en	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	compound	_	_
6	watch	watch	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	compound	_	_
7	fer	fer	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	compound	_	_
8	ter	ter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
9	see	see	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	conj	_	_
10	w'at	w'at	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	_
11	de	de	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
12	news	news	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	compound	_	_
13	wuz	wuz	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	compound	_	_
14	gwineter	gwineter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	conj	_	_
15	be	be	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **lie down** | past | Den | fer ter |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **see** | infinitive | Den *not said here* | w'at and de wuz gwineter |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **be** | infinitive |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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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