---
title: "Den I say, sez I: 'How long you bin knowin' me, Mars Jeems?' sez I. — Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings · tree and pragmatics
description: "Den I say, sez I: 'How long you bin knowin' me, Mars Jeems?' sez I. Who acts: I, you, Mars. 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.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2306/46/78/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2306/) / [A Story of the War](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2306/46/) / 78

# Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings, A Story of the War, sentence 78

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
"Den I say, sez I: 'How long you bin knowin' me, Mars Jeems?' sez I.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** I, you, Mars · **What happens:** say, sez, bin · **To what, where:** Den, knowin, I. · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (I, you, Mars), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg2306:46:78
# text = "Den I say, sez I: 'How long you bin knowin' me, Mars Jeems?' sez I.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Den	den	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	_
3	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	say	say	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
6	sez	sez	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	ccomp	_	_
7	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	13	punct	_	_
9	'	'	PUNCT	``	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	How	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	11	advmod	_	_
11	long	long	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	13	advmod	_	_
12	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
13	bin	bin	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
14	knowin	knowin	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	'	'	PUNCT	''	_	14	punct	_	_
16	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	13	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
18	Mars	Mars	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	22	nsubj	_	_
19	Jeems	Jeems	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	18	flat	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	18	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	'	'	PUNCT	''	_	18	punct	_	_
22	sez	say	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	parataxis	_	_
23	I.	I.	X	FW	Foreign=Yes	22	obj	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: ask* *in a quote* | present | I | Den |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **sez** *in a quote* | present | I |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **bin** *in a quote* | present | you | knowin |  |  |  | long *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **say** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | present | Mars | I. |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent i.=Topic |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 77](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2306/46/77/)
- next →: [sentence 79](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2306/46/79/)
- ↑ back to [A Story of the War](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2306/46/)