---
title: "Dey er too lazy ter wuk," he was saying, "en dey specks hones' foke… — Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings · tree and pragmatics
description: "Dey er too lazy ter wuk," he was saying, "en dey specks hones' fokes fer ter stan' up en s'port um. Who acts: er, en dey. 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 34

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"Dey er too lazy ter wuk," he was saying, "en dey specks hones' fokes fer ter stan' up en s'port um.

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**Who acts:** er, en dey · **What happens:** say, speck · **To what, where:** fokes · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (er, en 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:pg2306:46:34
# text = "Dey er too lazy ter wuk," he was saying, "en dey specks hones' fokes fer ter stan' up en s'port um.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Dey	Dey	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	compound	_	_
3	er	er	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	_
4	too	too	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	lazy	lazy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
6	ter	ter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	compound	_	_
7	wuk	wuk	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	12	punct	_	_
10	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
11	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
12	saying	say	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	7	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
14	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	17	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	en	en	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	compound	_	_
16	dey	dey	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nsubj	_	_
17	specks	speck	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	12	conj	_	_
18	hones	hone	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	20	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	'	's	PART	POS	_	18	case	_	_
20	fokes	foke	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	obj	_	_
21	fer	f	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	17	xcomp	_	_
22	ter	ter	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
23	stan	Stan	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	21	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	'	's	PART	POS	_	23	case	_	_
25	up	up	ADP	IN	_	28	case	_	_
26	en	en	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	28	compound	_	_
27	s'port	s'port	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	28	compound	_	_
28	um	um	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past · progressive | er |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **speck** *in a quote* | present | en dey | hones's fokes |  |  |  | f *property* | 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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