---
title: Though he were black, what was he the worse? — Morien: A Metrical Romance Rendered into English… · tree and pragmatics
description: Though he were black, what was he the worse? Who acts: man. A sentence of «Morien: A Metrical Romance Rendered into English Prose from the Mediæval Dutch» by Jessie L. Weston, Opening, part 3, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Morien: A Metrical Romance Rendered into English Prose from the Mediæval Dutch, Opening, part 3, sentence 50

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Though he were black, what was he the worse?

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**Who acts:** man · **What happens:** be

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This is a sentence of «Morien: A Metrical Romance Rendered into English Prose from the Mediæval Dutch» by Jessie L. Weston, Opening, part 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (man), 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:pg8447:3:50
# text = Though he were black, what was he the worse?
1	Though	though	SCONJ	IN	_	4	mark	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
4	black	black	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
6	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	10	nsubj	_	_
7	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	cop	_	_
8	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	worse	bad	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	4	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | man |  |  |  |  | black *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **is** | past |  |  |  |  |  | what *nsubj*; man *nsubj*; bad *property* | tree rules |

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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:** «Morien: A Metrical Romance Rendered into English Prose from the Mediæval Dutch» by Jessie L. Weston, Project Gutenberg book 8447 (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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