---
title: For fear of thy blow cowardice bade me make friends with covetousnes… — Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: A Middle-Englis… · tree and pragmatics
description: For fear of thy blow cowardice bade me make friends with covetousness and forsake the customs of largess and loyalty, which befit all knights. Who acts: me, customs. A sentence of «Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: A Middle-English Arthurian Romance Retold in Modern Prose» by Jessie L. Weston, Openin
---

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# Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: A Middle-English Arthurian Romance Retold in Modern Prose, Opening, part 8, sentence 84

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For fear of thy blow cowardice bade me make friends with covetousness and forsake the customs of largess and loyalty, which befit all knights.

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**Who acts:** me, customs · **What happens:** make, forsake, befit, fear · **To what, where:** friends, customs, knights, cowardice bade

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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 (me, customs), 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:pg66084:8:84
# text = For fear of thy blow cowardice bade me make friends with covetousness and forsake the customs of largess and loyalty, which befit all knights.
1	For	for	ADP	IN	_	2	case	_	_
2	fear	fear	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	_
3	of	of	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
4	thy	thy	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs|Style=Arch	7	nmod:poss	_	_
5	blow	blow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	compound	_	_
6	cowardice	cowardice	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	compound	_	_
7	bade	bade	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	nmod	_	_
8	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
9	make	make	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
10	friends	friend	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	obj	_	_
11	with	with	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	covetousness	covetousness	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
14	forsake	forsake	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	9	conj	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	customs	custom	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	obj	_	_
17	of	of	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
18	largess	largess	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nmod	_	_
19	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
20	loyalty	loyalty	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
22	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	23	nsubj	_	_
23	befit	befit	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	16	conj	_	_
24	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	25	det	_	_
25	knights	knight	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	23	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **make** | present | me | friends |  |  |  | for fear of thy cowardice bade; with covetousness | vn build-26.1-1 «NP V NP P.asset»: agent=Agent friend=Product for fear=Asset |
| 2 | **forsake** | infinitive | me *not said here* | the customs of largess and loyalty |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **befit** | present | the customs of largess and loyalty | all knights |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **fear** |  |  | thy cowardice bade |  |  |  |  | nom fear «feeling 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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