---
title: I ain't seed no Chinee dat I knows un, but dey tells me dey er sorte… — Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings · tree and pragmatics
description: I ain't seed no Chinee dat I knows un, but dey tells me dey er sorter 'twix' a brown en a brindle. Who acts: I, dey. A sentence of «Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings» by Joel Chandler Harris, XXXIII. Why the Negro Is Black, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings, XXXIII. Why the Negro Is Black, sentence 21

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I ain't seed no Chinee dat I knows un, but dey tells me dey er sorter 'twix' a brown en a brindle.

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**Who acts:** I, dey · **What happens:** know, tell · **To what, where:** un, dey, me · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (I, dey), 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:pg2306:36:21
# text = I ain't seed no Chinee dat I knows un, but dey tells me dey er sorter 'twix' a brown en a brindle.
1	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	ai	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	n't	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	4	advmod	_	_
4	seed	seed	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
5	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	7	det	_	_
6	Chinee	Chinee	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	7	compound	_	_
7	dat	dat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
8	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
9	knows	know	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	7	acl:relcl	_	_
10	un	un	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
12	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
13	dey	dey	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nsubj	_	_
14	tells	tell	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	_
15	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	14	iobj	_	_
16	dey	dey	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obj	_	_
17	er	e	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	18	amod	_	_
18	sorter	sorter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obj	_	_
19	'	'	PUNCT	``	_	20	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	twix	twix	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	appos	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	'	'	PUNCT	''	_	20	punct	_	_
22	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
23	brown	brown	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	24	amod	_	_
24	en	en	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obj	_	_
25	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	26	det	_	_
26	brindle	brindle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **know** | present | I | un |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Experiencer un=Stimulus |
| 2 | **tell** *speech: assert* | present | dey | dey | me |  |  |  | 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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