---
title: He let a yell like forty yaller cats a courtin', an' den he broke. — Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings · tree and pragmatics
description: He let a yell like forty yaller cats a courtin', an' den he broke. Who acts: riz. A sentence of «Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings» by Joel Chandler Harris, XII. As a Murderer, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings, XII. As a Murderer, sentence 26

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He let a yell like forty yaller cats a courtin', an' den he broke.

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**Who acts:** riz · **What happens:** let, break · **To what, where:** yell, den

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This is a sentence of «Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings» by Joel Chandler Harris, XII. As a Murderer. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (riz), 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:pg2306:58:26
# text = He let a yell like forty yaller cats a courtin', an' den he broke.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	let	let	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	yell	yell	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
5	like	like	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
6	forty	forty	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	8	nummod	_	_
7	yaller	yaller	X	FW	Foreign=Yes	8	nmod	_	_
8	cats	cat	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obl	_	_
9	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	courtin	courtin	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	',	',	PUNCT	``	_	14	punct	_	_
12	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	'	'	PUNCT	``	_	14	punct	_	_
14	den	den	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	appos	_	_
15	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
16	broke	break	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **let** | past | riz | a yell |  |  |  | like forty cats  yaller and a courtin | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent yell=Theme |
| 2 | **break** | past | riz | a den *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn hurt-40.8.3-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer den=Patient |

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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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