---
title: "Law, honey, ain't I tell you 'bout dat?" replied the old darkey, ch… — Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings · tree and pragmatics
description: "Law, honey, ain't I tell you 'bout dat?" replied the old darkey, chuckling slyly. " Who acts: Law, old darkey. A sentence of «Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings» by Joel Chandler Harris, IV. How Mr. Rabbit Was Too Sharp For Mr. Fox, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings, IV. How Mr. Rabbit Was Too Sharp For Mr. Fox, sentence 2

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"Law, honey, ain't I tell you 'bout dat?" replied the old darkey, chuckling slyly. "

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**Who acts:** Law, old darkey · **What happens:** not tell, reply, chuckle · **To what, where:** 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, IV. How Mr. Rabbit Was Too Sharp For Mr. Fox. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Law, old darkey), 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:pg2306:7:2
# text = "Law, honey, ain't I tell you 'bout dat?" replied the old darkey, chuckling slyly. "
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Law	law	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
4	honey	honey	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
6	ai	ai	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	n't	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	9	advmod	_	_
8	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
9	tell	tell	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
10	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	9	iobj	_	_
11	'	'	PUNCT	''	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	bout	bout	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	compound	_	_
13	dat	dat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	13	punct	_	_
16	replied	reply	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	ccomp	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
18	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	amod	_	_
19	darkey	darkey	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
21	chuckling	chuckle	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	16	advcl	_	_
22	slyly	slyly	ADV	RB	_	21	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
24	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **tell** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | present | Law and honey and ai |  | you |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent you=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 2 | **reply** *speech: ask* | past | the old darkey |  |  |  |  |  | vn respond-113 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **chuckle** | gerund | the old darkey *not said here* |  |  |  |  | slyly *property* | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

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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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