---
title: He lifted the axe lightly and let it fall with the edge of the blade… — Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: A Middle-Englis… · tree and pragmatics
description: He lifted the axe lightly and let it fall with the edge of the blade on the bare neck. Who acts: marvel, axe. 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 o
---

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# Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: A Middle-English Arthurian Romance Retold in Modern Prose, Opening, part 8, sentence 58

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He lifted the axe lightly and let it fall with the edge of the blade on the bare neck.

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**Who acts:** marvel, axe · **What happens:** lift, let, fall · **To what, where:** axe

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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 (marvel, axe), 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:pg66084:8:58
# text = He lifted the axe lightly and let it fall with the edge of the blade on the bare neck.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	lifted	lift	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	axe	axe	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
5	lightly	lightly	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
7	let	let	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	conj	_	_
8	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	obj	_	_
9	fall	fall	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	xcomp	_	_
10	with	with	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	edge	edge	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	_
13	of	of	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	blade	blade	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nmod	_	_
16	on	on	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
18	bare	bare	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	amod	_	_
19	neck	neck	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **lift** | past | marvel | the axe |  |  |  | lightly *property* | vn put\_direction-9.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent axe=Theme |
| 2 | **let** | infinitive | marvel *not said here* | axe |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **fall** | infinitive | axe *not said here* |  |  |  |  | with the edge of the blade on the bare neck | vn occur-48.3 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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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