---
title: Uncle Remus paused and laid his hand upon his stomach as if feeling… — Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings · tree and pragmatics
description: Uncle Remus paused and laid his hand upon his stomach as if feeling for something. Who acts: Uncle. A sentence of «Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings» by Joel Chandler Harris, XV. the Florida Watermelon, 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/pg2306/61/12/)

<!-- 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/) / [XV. the Florida Watermelon](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2306/61/) / 12

# Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings, XV. the Florida Watermelon, sentence 12

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Uncle Remus paused and laid his hand upon his stomach as if feeling for something.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Uncle · **What happens:** pause, lay, feel · **To what, where:** hand, stomach

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings» by Joel Chandler Harris, XV. the Florida Watermelon. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Uncle), 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:pg2306:61:12
# text = Uncle Remus paused and laid his hand upon his stomach as if feeling for something.
1	Uncle	uncle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
2	Remus	Remus	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	1	flat	_	_
3	paused	pause	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
5	laid	lay	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
6	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	7	nmod:poss	_	_
7	hand	hand	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	_
8	upon	upon	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	stomach	stomach	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
11	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	13	mark	_	_
12	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	13	mark	_	_
13	feeling	feel	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	5	advcl	_	_
14	for	for	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	something	something	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **pause** | past | Uncle |  |  |  |  |  | vn linger-53.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **lay** | past | Uncle *not said here* | Uncle's hand |  | Uncle's stomach |  |  | vn put\_spatial-9.2 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent hand=Theme upon stomach=Destination |
| 3 | **feel** | gerund | Uncle *not said here* |  |  |  |  | for something | vn hunt-35.1 «NP V PP.theme PP.location»: agent=Agent for something=Theme |

<!-- .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 11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2306/61/11/)
- next →: [sentence 13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2306/61/13/)
- ↑ back to [XV. the Florida Watermelon](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2306/61/)