---
title: "W'ich ark's dat?" asked the old man, in a tone of well-feigned curi… — Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings · tree and pragmatics
description: "W'ich ark's dat?" asked the old man, in a tone of well-feigned curiosity. Who acts: ark dat. 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 25

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"W'ich ark's dat?" asked the old man, in a tone of well-feigned curiosity.

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**Who acts:** ark dat · **What happens:** ask, feign, intonate · **To what, where:** old man, tone, feigned curiosity

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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 (ark dat), 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:pg2306:8:25
# text = "W'ich ark's dat?" asked the old man, in a tone of well-feigned curiosity.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	W'ich	W'ich	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	compound	_	_
3	ark	ark	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	's	's	PART	POS	_	3	case	_	_
5	dat	dat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
8	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
10	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
13	in	in	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	tone	tone	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	_
16	of	of	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
17	well	well	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	19	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	17	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	feigned	feign	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	20	amod	_	_
20	curiosity	curiosity	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past | ark dat |  | the old man | a tone of feigned curiosity |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent man=Recipient |
| 2 | **feign** | participle |  |  |  |  |  | well *property* | vn establish-55.5-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **intonate** |  |  | feigned curiosity |  |  |  |  | nom tone «communication transitive»: of=patient |

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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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