---
title: "I always told the old man that a suburban chicken coop would fall o… — Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings · tree and pragmatics
description: "I always told the old man that a suburban chicken coop would fall on him," remarked some one. Who acts: I, chicken coop, one. A sentence of «Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings» by Joel Chandler Harris, VI. Uncle Remus With the Toothache, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clau
---

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# Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings, VI. Uncle Remus With the Toothache, sentence 6

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"I always told the old man that a suburban chicken coop would fall on him," remarked some one.

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**Who acts:** I, chicken coop, one · **What happens:** tell, fall, remark · **To what, where:** old man · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings» by Joel Chandler Harris, VI. Uncle Remus With the Toothache. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I, chicken coop, one), 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:pg2306:52:6
# text = "I always told the old man that a suburban chicken coop would fall on him," remarked some one.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	always	always	ADV	RB	PronType=Tot	4	advmod	_	_
4	told	tell	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
6	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	_
8	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	14	mark	_	_
9	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
10	suburban	suburban	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	compound	_	_
11	chicken	chicken	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	compound	_	_
12	coop	coop	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nsubj	_	_
13	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
14	fall	fall	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	xcomp	_	_
15	on	on	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
16	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	19	punct	_	_
19	remarked	remark	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	14	advcl	_	_
20	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	21	det	_	_
21	one	one	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **tell** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | past | I |  | the old man |  |  | always *property* | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent man=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 2 | **fall** *not said to happen, in a quote* | would | a chicken coop |  |  |  |  | on mule | vn occur-48.3 «NP V PP»: agent=Theme on he=Location |
| 3 | **remark** *speech: assert* | participle | some one |  |  |  |  |  | vn lecture-37.11-1 «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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