---
title: Alas! naught may help me, yet should my life be forfeit, I fear not… — Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: A Middle-Englis… · tree and pragmatics
description: Alas! naught may help me, yet should my life be forfeit, I fear not a jot!” Who acts: naught, life, I. A sentence of «Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: A Middle-English Arthurian Romance Retold in Modern Prose» by Jessie L. Weston, Opening, part 8, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every
---

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# Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: A Middle-English Arthurian Romance Retold in Modern Prose, Opening, part 8, sentence 15

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Alas! naught may help me, yet should my life be forfeit, I fear not a jot!”

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**Who acts:** naught, life, I · **What happens:** help, be, not fear · **To what, where:** me, forfeit, jot

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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 8. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (naught, life, I), 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:pg66084:8:15
# text = Alas! naught may help me, yet should my life be forfeit, I fear not a jot!”
1	Alas	alas	INTJ	UH	_	5	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	1	punct	_	_
3	naught	naught	PRON	NN	PronType=Neg	5	nsubj	_	_
4	may	may	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
5	help	help	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
6	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
8	yet	yet	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
9	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
10	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	11	nmod:poss	_	_
11	life	life	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	_
12	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	cop	_	_
13	forfeit	forfeit	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
15	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
16	fear	fear	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
17	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	16	advmod	_	_
18	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	jot	jot	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **help** | may | naught |  | me |  |  |  | vn help-72.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent i=Beneficiary |
| 2 | **is a** | should | my life | forfeit |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **not** **fear** | present | I | a jot |  |  |  |  | vn admire-31.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer jot=Stimulus |

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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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