Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings, XXXIII. Why the Negro Is Black, sentence 18
Dem wuz de niggers, en down ter dis day dey ain't no w'ite 'bout a nigger 'ceppin de pa'ms er der han's en de soles er der foot."
Who acts: ter day dey, en de · What happens: not be, sole · To what, where: w'ite, er
This is a sentence of «Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings» by Joel Chandler Harris, XXXIII. Why the Negro Is Black. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (ter day dey, en de), 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 | Dem | Dem | PROPN | Number=Sing | 4 niggers | nsubj |
| 2 | wuz | wuz | NOUN | Number=Sing | 4 niggers | compound |
| 3 | de | de | NOUN | Number=Sing | 4 niggers | compound |
| 4 | niggers | nigger | NOUN | Number=Plur | root | root |
| 5 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 6 en | punct |
| 6 | en | en | NOUN | Number=Sing | 4 niggers | conj |
| 7 | down | down | ADP | _ | 4 niggers | compound:prt |
| 8 | ter | ter | NOUN | Number=Sing | 11 dey | compound |
| 9 | dis | dis | NOUN | Number=Sing | 10 day | compound |
| 10 | day | day | NOUN | Number=Sing | 11 dey | compound |
| 11 | dey | dey | NOUN | Number=Sing | 15 w'ite | nsubj |
| 12 | ai | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 15 w'ite | cop |
| 13 | n't | not | PART | Polarity=Neg | 15 w'ite | advmod |
| 14 | no | no | DET | PronType=Neg | 15 w'ite | det |
| 15 | w'ite | w'ite | NOUN | Number=Sing | 4 niggers | conj |
| 16 | ' | ' | PUNCT | _ | 15 w'ite | punct |
| 17 | bout | bout | ADP | _ | 21 ceppin | case |
| 18 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 19 nigger | det |
| 19 | nigger | nigger | NOUN | Number=Sing | 21 ceppin | nmod:poss |
| 20 | ' | 's | PART | _ | 19 nigger | case |
| 21 | ceppin | ceppin | NOUN | Number=Sing | 15 w'ite | nmod |
| 22 | de | de | X | Foreign=Yes | 21 ceppin | flat:foreign |
| 23 | pa'ms | pa'm | NOUN | Number=Plur | 21 ceppin | conj |
| 24 | er | er | INTJ | _ | 30 soles | discourse |
| 25 | der | d | ADJ | Degree=Cmp | 26 han | amod |
| 26 | han | han | NOUN | Number=Sing | 29 de | nmod:poss |
| 27 | 's | 's | PART | _ | 26 han | case |
| 28 | en | en | NOUN | Number=Sing | 29 de | compound |
| 29 | de | de | NOUN | Number=Sing | 30 soles | nsubj |
| 30 | soles | sole | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 23 pa'ms | conj |
| 31 | er | er | NOUN | Number=Sing | 30 soles | obj |
| 32 | der | d | ADJ | Degree=Cmp | 33 foot | amod |
| 33 | foot | foot | NOUN | Number=Sing | 30 soles | obj |
| 34 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 4 niggers | punct |
| 35 | " | " | PUNCT | _ | 4 niggers | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | not is a | present | ter day dey | no w'ite | bout a nigger's ceppin and pa'ms | tree rules | |||
| 2 | sole | present | der han's en de | er | tree rules |
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.
This page in Markdown → https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2306/36/18/