---
title: But a certain man that was a spy was aware of the matter, and told i… — Stories of Charlemagne and the twelve Peers of F… · tree and pragmatics
description: But a certain man that was a spy was aware of the matter, and told it to Roland. Who acts: certain man. A sentence of «Stories of Charlemagne and the twelve Peers of France» by Alfred John Church, Of the Craft of Mawgis, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg75339/8/3/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Stories of Charlemagne and the twelve…](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg75339/) / [Of the Craft of Mawgis](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg75339/8/) / 3

# Stories of Charlemagne and the twelve Peers of France, Of the Craft of Mawgis, sentence 3

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
But a certain man that was a spy was aware of the matter, and told it to Roland.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** certain man · **What happens:** be, tell · **To what, where:** spy, matter, Roland · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Stories of Charlemagne and the twelve Peers of France» by Alfred John Church, Of the Craft of Mawgis. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (certain man), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**Mova's own parse.** This tree may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg75339:8:3
# text = But a certain man that was a spy was aware of the matter, and told it to Roland.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
2	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
3	certain	certain	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	_
5	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	8	nsubj	_	_
6	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	cop	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	spy	spy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	acl:relcl	_	_
9	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	cop	_	_
10	aware	aware	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
11	of	of	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	matter	matter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
16	told	tell	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	parataxis	_	_
17	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	obj	_	_
18	to	to	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
19	Roland	Roland	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	16	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | a certain man | a spy |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **is** | past | a certain man |  |  |  |  | of the matter; aware *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **tell** *speech: assert* | past |  | matter | Roland |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.recipient»: agent=Agent it=Topic to roland=Recipient |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg75339/8/2/)
- next →: [sentence 4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg75339/8/4/)
- ↑ back to [Of the Craft of Mawgis](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg75339/8/)