---
title: Then the old man blew the ashes from a smoking yam, and proceeded to… — Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings · tree and pragmatics
description: Then the old man blew the ashes from a smoking yam, and proceeded to remove the peeling. Who acts: old man. A sentence of «Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings» by Joel Chandler Harris, V. the Story of the Deluge and How It Came About, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings, V. the Story of the Deluge and How It Came About, sentence 23

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Then the old man blew the ashes from a smoking yam, and proceeded to remove the peeling.

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**Who acts:** old man · **What happens:** blow, proceed, remove · **To what, where:** ashes, peeling

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This is a sentence of «Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings» by Joel Chandler Harris, V. the Story of the Deluge and How It Came About. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (old man), 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:pg2306:8:23
# text = Then the old man blew the ashes from a smoking yam, and proceeded to remove the peeling.
1	Then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	5	advmod	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
3	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
5	blew	blow	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	ashes	ash	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	obj	_	_
8	from	from	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
9	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
10	smoking	smoking	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	compound	_	_
11	yam	yam	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
14	proceeded	proceed	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
15	to	to	PART	TO	_	16	mark	_	_
16	remove	remove	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	xcomp	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	peeling	peeling	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **blow** | past | the old man | the ashes |  |  | then | from a smoking yam | vn split-23.2 «NP V NP PP.co-patient»: agent=Agent ash=Patient from yam=Co-Patient |
| 2 | **proceed** | past | the old man *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn begin-55.1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 3 | **remove** | to-infinitive | the old man *not said here* | the peeling |  |  |  |  | vn fire-10.10 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent peeling=Theme |

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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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