---
title: "'I ain't runnin' wid cowerds deze days,' sez Brer Coon. ' — Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings · tree and pragmatics
description: "'I ain't runnin' wid cowerds deze days,' sez Brer Coon. ' Who acts: runnin. A sentence of «Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings» by Joel Chandler Harris, III. Why Mr. Possum Loves Peace, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings, III. Why Mr. Possum Loves Peace, sentence 24

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"'I ain't runnin' wid cowerds deze days,' sez Brer Coon. '

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**Who acts:** runnin · **What happens:** not runnin, say · **To what, where:** wid cowerds, Brer · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings» by Joel Chandler Harris, III. Why Mr. Possum Loves Peace. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (runnin), 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:pg2306:6:24
# text = "'I ain't runnin' wid cowerds deze days,' sez Brer Coon. '
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	'	'	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
4	ai	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	n't	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	6	advmod	_	_
6	runnin	runnin	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	14	csubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	'	'	PUNCT	``	_	9	punct	_	_
8	wid	wid	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	cowerds	cowerd	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	obj	_	_
10	deze	deze	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	compound	_	_
11	days	day	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	appos	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	'	'	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
14	sez	say	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
15	Brer	Brer	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	14	obj	_	_
16	Coon	Coon	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	15	flat	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	14	punct	_	_
18	'	'	PUNCT	''	_	14	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **runnin** *in a quote* | present · progressive | runnin | wid cowerds |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | present | runnin | Brer |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent brer=Topic |

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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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