---
title: Rather may this pagan smite off his head!" — Stories of Charlemagne and the twelve Peers of F… · tree and pragmatics
description: Rather may this pagan smite off his head!" Who acts: Rather. A sentence of «Stories of Charlemagne and the twelve Peers of France» by Alfred John Church, How Fierabras Defied King Charles, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Stories of Charlemagne and the twelve Peers of France, How Fierabras Defied King Charles, sentence 69

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Rather may this pagan smite off his head!"

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**Who acts:** Rather · **What happens:** smite off · **To what, where:** head

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This is a sentence of «Stories of Charlemagne and the twelve Peers of France» by Alfred John Church, How Fierabras Defied King Charles. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Rather), 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:pg75339:16:69
# text = Rather may this pagan smite off his head!"
1	Rather	Rather	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
2	may	may	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
3	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	4	det	_	_
4	pagan	pagan	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
5	smite	smite	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
6	off	off	ADP	RP	_	5	compound:prt	_	_
7	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
8	head	head	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **smite off** | may | Rather | Ganelon's head |  |  |  | this pagan *nsubj* | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Stimulus head=Experiencer |

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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:** «Stories of Charlemagne and the twelve Peers of France» by Alfred John Church, Project Gutenberg book 75339 (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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