---
title: You may know de way, but better keep yo' eyes on de seven stairs. — Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings · tree and pragmatics
description: You may know de way, but better keep yo' eyes on de seven stairs. Who acts: You. A sentence of «Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings» by Joel Chandler Harris, Plantation Proverbs, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings, Plantation Proverbs, sentence 56

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You may know de way, but better keep yo' eyes on de seven stairs.

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**Who acts:** You · **What happens:** know, keep · **To what, where:** way, yo eyes, seven stairs

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This is a sentence of «Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings» by Joel Chandler Harris, Plantation Proverbs. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (You), 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:pg2306:38:56
# text = You may know de way, but better keep yo' eyes on de seven stairs.
1	You	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	may	may	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
3	know	know	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
4	de	de	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	way	way	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
7	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
8	better	good	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	9	csubj	_	_
9	keep	keep	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	conj	_	_
10	yo	yo	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	'	'	PUNCT	''	_	10	punct	_	_
12	eyes	eye	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	obj	_	_
13	on	on	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
14	de	de	X	FW	Foreign=Yes	16	nsubj	_	_
15	seven	seven	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	16	nummod	_	_
16	stairs	stair	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **know** | may | You | de way |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Experiencer way=Stimulus |
| 2 | **keep** | infinitive | You *not said here* | yo eyes |  | seven stairs |  |  | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP PP.location»: agent=Agent eye=Theme on stair=Location |

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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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