---
title: The old man chuckled, and gave the horses a gentle rap with the whip. — Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings · tree and pragmatics
description: The old man chuckled, and gave the horses a gentle rap with the whip. Who acts: old man. A sentence of «Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings» by Joel Chandler Harris, A Story of the War, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings, A Story of the War, sentence 24

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The old man chuckled, and gave the horses a gentle rap with the whip.

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**Who acts:** old man · **What happens:** chuckle, give · **To what, where:** gentle rap, horses

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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 (old man), 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:pg2306:46:24
# text = The old man chuckled, and gave the horses a gentle rap with the whip.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	chuckled	chuckle	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
7	gave	give	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	horses	horse	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	obj	_	_
10	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
11	gentle	gentle	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
12	rap	rap	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	_
13	with	with	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	whip	whip	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **chuckle** | past | the old man |  |  |  |  |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **give** | past | the old man *not said here* | a gentle rap | the horses |  |  |  | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent horse=Recipient rap=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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