---
title: But somebody better pen dis yer nigger boy up w'en I'm on de town--I… — Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings · tree and pragmatics
description: But somebody better pen dis yer nigger boy up w'en I'm on de town--I kin tell you dat." Who acts: nigger boy, I. 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.
---

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# Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings, XV. the Florida Watermelon, sentence 21

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But somebody better pen dis yer nigger boy up w'en I'm on de town--I kin tell you dat."

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**Who acts:** nigger boy, I · **What happens:** be, tell · **To what, where:** de town, dat, you · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (nigger boy, I), 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:pg2306:61:21
# text = But somebody better pen dis yer nigger boy up w'en I'm on de town--I kin tell you dat."
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
2	somebody	somebody	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	5	nsubj	_	_
3	better	good	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	2	amod	_	_
4	pen	pen	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	compound	_	_
5	dis	dis	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
6	yer	yer	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
7	nigger	nigger	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	compound	_	_
8	boy	boy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nsubj	_	_
9	up	up	ADP	RP	_	8	compound:prt	_	_
10	w'en	w'en	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	conj	_	_
11	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	'm	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	15	cop	_	_
13	on	on	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	de	de	X	FW	Foreign=Yes	15	compound	_	_
15	town	town	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	--	--	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
18	kin	kin	ADV	RB	_	19	advmod	_	_
19	tell	tell	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	15	parataxis	_	_
20	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	19	iobj	_	_
21	dat	dat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	15	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | present | yer's nigger boy and w'en |  |  | de town |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **tell** *speech: assert* | present | I | dat | you |  |  | kin *property* | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent you=Recipient dat=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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