Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings, XXVII. Why Mr. Possum Has No Hair on His Tail, sentence 27

"Uncle Remus, you know you promised to-day to tell me why the 'Possum has no hair on his tail."

Who acts: you, Possum · What happens: know, promise, tell, have · To what, where: Uncle Remus, little boy, hair, tail · Speech: someone speaks here

This is a sentence of «Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings» by Joel Chandler Harris, XXVII. Why Mr. Possum Has No Hair on His Tail. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, Possum), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	"	"	PUNCT	_	3 Remus	punct
2	Uncle	uncle	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 Remus	compound
3	Remus	Remus	PROPN	Number=Sing	6 know	obl
4	,	,	PUNCT	_	3 Remus	punct
5	you	you	PRON	Case=Nom Person=2 PronType=Prs	6 know	nsubj
6	know	know	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=2 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
7	you	you	PRON	Case=Nom Person=2 PronType=Prs	8 promised	nsubj
8	promised	promise	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=2 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	6 know	ccomp
9	to	to	ADP	_	11 day	case
10	-	-	PUNCT	_	9 to	punct
11	day	day	NOUN	Number=Sing	8 promised	obl
12	to	to	PART	_	13 tell	mark
13	tell	tell	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	8 promised	xcomp
14	me	I	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs	13 tell	iobj
15	why	why	ADV	PronType=Int	19 has	advmod
16	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	19 has	det
17	'	'	PUNCT	_	19 has	punct
18	Possum	Possum	PROPN	Number=Sing	19 has	nsubj
19	has	have	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	13 tell	advcl
20	no	no	DET	PronType=Neg	21 hair	det
21	hair	hair	NOUN	Number=Sing	19 has	obj
22	on	on	ADP	_	24 tail	case
23	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	24 tail	nmod:poss
24	tail	tail	NOUN	Number=Sing	21 hair	nmod
25	.	.	PUNCT	_	6 know	punct
26	"	"	PUNCT	_	6 know	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	roles by
1	know in a quote	present	you	Uncle Remus				vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V S_ING»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus
2	promise speech: promise in a quote	past	you				day	vn promise-37.13 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic
3	tell speech: assert not said to happen, in a quote	to-infinitive	you not said here		the little boy = boy			vn transfer_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent i=Recipient
4	have in a quote	present	Possum	no hair		Possum's tail		vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent hair=Patient

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.

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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