---
title: But the knight made ever good cheer, and said, “Nay, wherefore shoul… — Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: A Middle-Englis… · tree and pragmatics
description: But the knight made ever good cheer, and said, “Nay, wherefore should I shrink? Who acts: knight. A sentence of «Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: A Middle-English Arthurian Romance Retold in Modern Prose» by Jessie L. Weston, Opening, part 3, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clau
---

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# Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: A Middle-English Arthurian Romance Retold in Modern Prose, Opening, part 3, sentence 31

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But the knight made ever good cheer, and said, “Nay, wherefore should I shrink?

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**Who acts:** knight · **What happens:** make, say, shrink · **To what, where:** good cheer · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: A Middle-English Arthurian Romance Retold in Modern Prose» by Jessie L. Weston, Opening, part 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (knight), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Mova's own parse.** This tree may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg66084:3:31
# text = But the knight made ever good cheer, and said, “Nay, wherefore should I shrink?
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	knight	knight	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	made	make	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	ever	ever	ADV	RB	PronType=Ind	6	advmod	_	_
6	good	good	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	cheer	cheer	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
10	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
12	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	18	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	Nay	nay	INTJ	UH	_	18	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
15	wherefore	wherefore	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	18	advmod	_	_
16	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	18	aux	_	_
17	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
18	shrink	shrink	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **make** | past | the knight | good cheer |  |  |  |  | vn build-26.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent cheer=Product |
| 2 | **say** *speech: ask* | past | the knight *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **shrink** *in a quote* | should | the knight *= knight* |  |  |  |  | wherefore *property* | vn bend-45.2 «NP.patient V»: agent=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:** «Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: A Middle-English Arthurian Romance Retold in Modern Prose» by Jessie L. Weston, Project Gutenberg book 66084 (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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