---
title: Den dey commence gittin' thinner en thinner, en den atter w'ile we h… — Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings · tree and pragmatics
description: Den dey commence gittin' thinner en thinner, en den atter w'ile we hear skummishin' in de naberhood er Armer's fe'y, en Ole Miss 'low how dat wuz Wheeler's men makin' persoot. Who acts: Den dey, we. A sentence of «Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings» by Joel Chandler Harris, A Story of the War, w
---

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# Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings, A Story of the War, sentence 114

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Den dey commence gittin' thinner en thinner, en den atter w'ile we hear skummishin' in de naberhood er Armer's fe'y, en Ole Miss 'low how dat wuz Wheeler's men makin' persoot.

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**Who acts:** Den dey, we · **What happens:** commence, hear · **To what, where:** gittin thinner en, atter w'ile, de naberhood

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This is a sentence of «Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings» by Joel Chandler Harris, A Story of the War. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Den dey, we), 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:pg2306:46:114
# text = Den dey commence gittin' thinner en thinner, en den atter w'ile we hear skummishin' in de naberhood er Armer's fe'y, en Ole Miss 'low how dat wuz Wheeler's men makin' persoot.
1	Den	den	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	compound	_	_
2	dey	dey	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	commence	commence	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	gittin	gittin	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	'	'	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
6	thinner	thin	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	7	amod	_	_
7	en	en	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
8	thinner	thin	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	3	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
10	en	en	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	compound	_	_
11	den	den	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	compound	_	_
12	atter	atter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	compound	_	_
13	w'ile	w'ile	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obl	_	_
14	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
15	hear	hear	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	parataxis	_	_
16	skummishin	skummishin	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	'	'	PUNCT	''	_	15	punct	_	_
18	in	in	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
19	de	de	X	FW	Foreign=Yes	20	compound	_	_
20	naberhood	naberhood	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obl	_	_
21	er	er	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
22	Armer	Armer	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	24	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	's	's	PART	POS	_	22	case	_	_
24	fe'y	fe'y	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	26	punct	_	_
26	en	en	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	conj	_	_
27	Ole	Ole	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	28	compound	_	_
28	Miss	Miss	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	33	nmod:poss	_	_
29	'	's	PART	POS	_	28	case	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	low	low	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	33	amod	_	_
31	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	32	advmod	_	_
32	dat	dat	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	33	amod	_	_
33	wuz	wuz	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	conj	_	_
34	Wheeler	Wheeler	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	33	appos	_	SpaceAfter=No
35	's	's	PART	POS	_	34	case	_	_
36	men	man	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	33	conj	_	_
37	makin	makin	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	39	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
38	'	's	PART	POS	_	37	case	_	_
39	persoot	persoot	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	36	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
40	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **commence** | present | Den dey | gittin thinner en |  |  |  | thin *property* | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent en=Eventuality |
| 2 | **hear** | present | we | atter w'ile |  | de naberhood er Armer's fe'y and en and Ole Miss's low dat wuz and men  makin's persoot |  |  | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V S»: agent=Experiencer skummishin=Stimulus |

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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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