---
title: "Brer Fox, he sorter chuckle in his stummick, he did, but Tar- Baby… — Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings · tree and pragmatics
description: "Brer Fox, he sorter chuckle in his stummick, he did, but Tar- Baby ain't sayin' nothin'. Who acts: Brer. A sentence of «Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings» by Joel Chandler Harris, II. the Wonderful Tar Baby Story, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings, II. the Wonderful Tar Baby Story, sentence 17

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"Brer Fox, he sorter chuckle in his stummick, he did, but Tar- Baby ain't sayin' nothin'.

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**Who acts:** Brer · **What happens:** chuckle, do · **To what, where:** stummick

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This is a sentence of «Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings» by Joel Chandler Harris, II. the Wonderful Tar Baby Story. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Brer), 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:pg2306:5:17
# text = "Brer Fox, he sorter chuckle in his stummick, he did, but Tar- Baby ain't sayin' nothin'.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Brer	Brer	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	_
3	Fox	Fox	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	2	flat	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
5	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
6	sorter	sorter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	compound	_	_
7	chuckle	chuckle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	appos	_	_
8	in	in	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	10	nmod:poss	_	_
10	stummick	stummick	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
12	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
13	did	do	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
15	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
16	Tar	Tar	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	18	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	16	punct	_	_
18	Baby	Baby	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	19	nsubj	_	_
19	ai	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Style=Vrnc|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	13	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	n't	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	21	advmod	_	_
21	sayin	sayin	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	'	'	PUNCT	``	_	23	punct	_	_
23	nothin	nothin	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	appos	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	'	'	PUNCT	''	_	23	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	13	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **chuckle** *in a quote* |  | Brer |  |  | Brer's stummick |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **do** *in a quote* | past | Brer |  |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

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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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