---
title: ONE night, while the little boy was watching Uncle Remus twisting an… — Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings · tree and pragmatics
description: ONE night, while the little boy was watching Uncle Remus twisting and waxing some shoe-thread, he made what appeared to him to be a very curious discovery. Who acts: little boy, Uncle Remus, boy. A sentence of «Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings» by Joel Chandler Harris, XXXIII. Why the Negro Is
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2306/36/1/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2306/) / [XXXIII. Why the Negro Is Black](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2306/36/) / 1

# Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings, XXXIII. Why the Negro Is Black, sentence 1

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
ONE night, while the little boy was watching Uncle Remus twisting and waxing some shoe-thread, he made what appeared to him to be a very curious discovery.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** little boy, Uncle Remus, boy · **What happens:** watch, twist, wax, make, appear, be · **To what, where:** Uncle Remus, shoe thread, boy, curious discovery

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings» by Joel Chandler Harris, XXXIII. Why the Negro Is Black. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (little boy, Uncle Remus, boy), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg2306:36:1
# text = ONE night, while the little boy was watching Uncle Remus twisting and waxing some shoe-thread, he made what appeared to him to be a very curious discovery.
1	ONE	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	2	nummod	_	_
2	night	night	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	obl:unmarked	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
4	while	while	SCONJ	IN	_	9	mark	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
6	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	boy	boy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	_
8	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	_
9	watching	watch	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	2	advcl	_	_
10	Uncle	uncle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	compound	_	_
11	Remus	remus	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	_
12	twisting	twist	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	11	acl	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
14	waxing	wax	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	12	conj	_	_
15	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	18	det	_	_
16	shoe	shoe	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	16	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	thread	thread	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
20	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	nsubj	_	_
21	made	make	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
22	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	23	nsubj	_	_
23	appeared	appear	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	21	ccomp	_	_
24	to	to	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
25	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	23	obl	_	_
26	to	to	PART	TO	_	31	mark	_	_
27	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	31	cop	_	_
28	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	31	det	_	_
29	very	very	ADV	RB	_	30	advmod	_	_
30	curious	curious	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	31	amod	_	_
31	discovery	discovery	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
32	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	21	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **watch** | past · progressive | the little boy | Uncle Remus |  |  |  |  | vn assessment-34.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent remus=Theme |
| 2 | **twist** | gerund | Uncle Remus *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn roll-51.3.1 «NP.theme V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **wax** | gerund | Uncle Remus *not said here* | some shoe thread |  |  |  |  | vn appear-48.1.1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location thread=Theme |
| 4 | **make** | past | boy |  |  |  | night |  | tree rules |
| 5 | **appear** | past |  |  | boy |  |  |  | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 6 | **is a** | to-infinitive |  | a curious discovery |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [XXXII. "jacky-my-lantern" \*1, 51](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2306/35/51/)
- next →: [sentence 2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2306/36/2/)
- ↑ back to [XXXIII. Why the Negro Is Black](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2306/36/)