---
title: He had de water in a bucket, but dey ain't no tellin' how much red l… — Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings · tree and pragmatics
description: He had de water in a bucket, but dey ain't no tellin' how much red licker he wuz a totin'. Who acts: er. A sentence of «Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings» by Joel Chandler Harris, XVIII. a Temperance Reformer, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings, XVIII. a Temperance Reformer, sentence 19

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He had de water in a bucket, but dey ain't no tellin' how much red licker he wuz a totin'.

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**Who acts:** er · **What happens:** de, wuz · **To what, where:** water, bucket, totin

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This is a sentence of «Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings» by Joel Chandler Harris, XVIII. a Temperance Reformer. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (er), 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:pg2306:64:19
# text = He had de water in a bucket, but dey ain't no tellin' how much red licker he wuz a totin'.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
3	de	de	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
4	water	water	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
5	in	in	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	bucket	bucket	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
9	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
10	dey	dey	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	compound	_	_
11	ai	ai	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	n't	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	14	advmod	_	_
13	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	14	det	_	_
14	tellin	tellin	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	appos	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	'	'	PUNCT	``	_	19	punct	_	_
16	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	17	advmod	_	_
17	much	much	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	amod	_	_
18	red	red	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	amod	_	_
19	licker	licker	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	appos	_	_
20	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	nsubj	_	_
21	wuz	wuz	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	19	acl:relcl	_	_
22	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
23	totin	totin	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	'	'	PUNCT	''	_	23	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **de** | past · perfect | er | water |  | a bucket |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **wuz** | present | er | a totin |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

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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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