---
title: But the Saracens knew not what he said. — Stories of Charlemagne and the twelve Peers of F… · tree and pragmatics
description: But the Saracens knew not what he said. Who acts: Saracens, Admiral. A sentence of «Stories of Charlemagne and the twelve Peers of France» by Alfred John Church, How Oliver and His Comrades Fared, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Stories of Charlemagne and the twelve Peers of France, How Oliver and His Comrades Fared, sentence 20

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But the Saracens knew not what he said.

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**Who acts:** Saracens, Admiral · **What happens:** not know, say · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Stories of Charlemagne and the twelve Peers of France» by Alfred John Church, How Oliver and His Comrades Fared. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Saracens, Admiral), 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:pg75339:19:20
# text = But the Saracens knew not what he said.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	Saracens	Saracen	PROPN	NNPS	Number=Plur	4	nsubj	_	_
4	knew	know	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	4	advmod	_	_
6	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	4	obj	_	_
7	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
8	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **know** | past | the Saracens |  |  |  |  | what *obj* | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Experiencer what=Stimulus |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Admiral |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |

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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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