---
title: What may a man do but prove his fate?” — Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: A Middle-Englis… · tree and pragmatics
description: What may a man do but prove his fate?” Who acts: man, Gawain. 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 clause.
---

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# Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: A Middle-English Arthurian Romance Retold in Modern Prose, Opening, part 3, sentence 32

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What may a man do but prove his fate?”

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**Who acts:** man, Gawain · **What happens:** do, prove, fate · **To what, where:** fate

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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 (man, Gawain), 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:pg66084:3:32
# text = What may a man do but prove his fate?”
1	What	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	5	obj	_	_
2	may	may	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
5	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
6	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
7	prove	prove	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	conj	_	_
8	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	9	nmod:poss	_	_
9	fate	fate	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **do** | may | a man |  |  |  |  | What *obj* | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent what=Eventuality |
| 2 | **prove** | infinitive | a man *not said here* | Gawain's fate |  |  |  |  | vn deduce-97.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent fate=Theme |
| 3 | **fate** |  | Gawain |  |  |  |  |  | nom fate «event transitive»: poss=agent |

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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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