Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings, XX. the Old Man's Troubles, sentence 1

"WHAT makes you look so lonesome, Brer Remus?" asked a well- dressed negro, as the old man came shuffling down the street by James's corner yesterday.

Who acts: you, dressed negro, old man · What happens: make, look, ask, dress, come, shuffle · To what, where: you, street · Speech: someone speaks here

This is a sentence of «Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings» by Joel Chandler Harris, XX. the Old Man's Troubles. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, dressed negro, old man), 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 makes	punct
2	WHAT	what	PRON	PronType=Int	3 makes	nsubj
3	makes	make	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
4	you	you	PRON	Case=Acc Person=2 PronType=Prs	3 makes	obj
5	look	look	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	3 makes	xcomp
6	so	so	SCONJ	_	7 lonesome	case
7	lonesome	lonesome	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 look	obl
8	,	,	PUNCT	_	10 Remus	punct
9	Brer	Brer	PROPN	Number=Sing	10 Remus	compound
10	Remus	Remus	PROPN	Number=Sing	7 lonesome	appos
11	?	?	PUNCT	_	3 makes	punct
12	"	"	PUNCT	_	3 makes	punct
13	asked	ask	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 makes	advcl
14	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	18 negro	det
15	well	well	ADV	Degree=Pos	17 dressed	advmod
16	-	-	PUNCT	_	15 well	punct
17	dressed	dress	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	18 negro	amod
18	negro	negro	NOUN	Number=Sing	13 asked	obj
19	,	,	PUNCT	_	24 came	punct
20	as	as	SCONJ	_	24 came	mark
21	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	23 man	det
22	old	old	ADJ	Degree=Pos	23 man	amod
23	man	man	NOUN	Number=Sing	24 came	nsubj
24	came	come	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	13 asked	parataxis
25	shuffling	shuffle	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	24 came	advcl
26	down	down	ADP	_	28 street	case
27	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	28 street	det
28	street	street	NOUN	Number=Sing	25 shuffling	obl
29	by	by	ADP	_	32 corner	case
30	James	James	PROPN	Number=Sing	32 corner	nmod:poss
31	's	's	PART	_	30 James	case
32	corner	corner	NOUN	Number=Sing	25 shuffling	obl
33	yesterday	yesterday	NOUN	Number=Sing	25 shuffling	obl:unmarked
34	.	.	PUNCT	_	3 makes	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	make in a quote	present		you				tree rules
2	look in a quote	infinitive	you not said here				so lonesome	vn stimulus_subject-30.4 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Stimulus
3	ask speech: ask	past	a dressed negro					vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent
4	dress	participle					well property	vn dress-41.1.1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent
5	come	past	the old man					vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
6	shuffle	gerund	the old man not said here		the street	yesterday	by James's corner	vn run-51.3.2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme down street=Trajectory

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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