---
title: When men shall sit and sing, blithe for Christ’s birth, this knight… — Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: A Middle-Englis… · tree and pragmatics
description: When men shall sit and sing, blithe for Christ’s birth, this knight shall bring us to the knowledge of fair manners, and it may be that hearing him we may learn the cunning speech of love.” Who acts: men, knight, knowledge, we. A sentence of «Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: A Middle-English Arthuri
---

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# Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: A Middle-English Arthurian Romance Retold in Modern Prose, Opening, part 4, sentence 42

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When men shall sit and sing, blithe for Christ’s birth, this knight shall bring us to the knowledge of fair manners, and it may be that hearing him we may learn the cunning speech of love.”

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**Who acts:** men, knight, knowledge, we · **What happens:** sit, sing, bring, be, learn, speak · **To what, where:** us, knowledge, cunning speech, love · **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 4. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (men, knight, knowledge, we), 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:pg66084:4:42
# text = When men shall sit and sing, blithe for Christ’s birth, this knight shall bring us to the knowledge of fair manners, and it may be that hearing him we may learn the cunning speech of love.”
1	When	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	4	advmod	_	_
2	men	man	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nsubj	_	_
3	shall	shall	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	sit	sit	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
5	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
6	sing	sing	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
8	blithe	blithe	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	conj	_	_
9	for	for	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
10	Christ	Christ	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	12	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	’s	's	PART	POS	_	10	case	_	_
12	birth	birth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
14	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	15	det	_	_
15	knight	knight	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nsubj	_	_
16	shall	shall	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	_
17	bring	bring	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	conj	_	_
18	us	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	17	obj	_	_
19	to	to	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	knowledge	knowledge	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obl	_	_
22	of	of	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
23	fair	fair	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	24	amod	_	_
24	manners	manners	NOUN	NNS	Number=Ptan	21	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	31	punct	_	_
26	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	31	cc	_	_
27	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	31	nsubj	_	_
28	may	may	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	31	aux	_	_
29	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	31	cop	_	_
30	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	31	mark	_	_
31	hearing	hear	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	35	csubj	_	_
32	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	31	obj	_	_
33	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	35	nsubj	_	_
34	may	may	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	35	aux	_	_
35	learn	learn	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	parataxis	_	_
36	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	38	det	_	_
37	cunning	cunning	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	38	compound	_	_
38	speech	speech	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	35	obj	_	_
39	of	of	ADP	IN	_	40	case	_	_
40	love	love	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	38	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
41	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
42	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sit** | shall | men |  |  |  |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **sing** *speech: express* | infinitive | men *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **bring** | shall | this knight | us |  | the knowledge of fair manners |  |  | vn bring-11.3-1 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent we=Theme to knowledge=Destination |
| 4 | **is** | may | knowledge |  |  |  |  | knight *obj*; hear *property* | tree rules |
| 5 | **learn** | may | we | the cunning speech of love |  |  |  |  | vn learn-14-2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent speech=Topic |
| 6 | **speak** |  |  | love |  |  |  |  | nom speech «communication 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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