---
title: On the bare twigs the birds chirped piteously, for pain of the cold. — Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: A Middle-Englis… · tree and pragmatics
description: On the bare twigs the birds chirped piteously, for pain of the cold. 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 87

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On the bare twigs the birds chirped piteously, for pain of the cold.

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**What happens:** chirp, pain · **To what, where:** birds, cold

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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: 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:pg66084:3:87
# text = On the bare twigs the birds chirped piteously, for pain of the cold.
1	On	on	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
3	bare	bare	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	twigs	twig	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	obl	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	birds	bird	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	0	root	_	_
7	chirped	chirp	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	6	acl	_	_
8	piteously	piteously	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
10	for	for	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
11	pain	pain	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	_
12	of	of	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	cold	cold	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **chirp** | participle |  | the birds on the bare twigs *not said here* |  |  |  | for pain of the cold; piteously *property* | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V PP.recipient S\_INF»: agent=Agent for pain=Recipient |
| 3 | **pain** |  |  | the cold |  |  |  |  | nom pain «state transitive»: of=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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