---
title: They were loth to own that he was evil and cruel of heart. — Morien: A Metrical Romance Rendered into English… · tree and pragmatics
description: They were loth to own that he was evil and cruel of heart. Who acts: friends, knight. A sentence of «Morien: A Metrical Romance Rendered into English Prose from the Mediæval Dutch» by Jessie L. Weston, Opening, part 6, 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 6, sentence 47

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They were loth to own that he was evil and cruel of heart.

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**Who acts:** friends, knight · **What happens:** be, own

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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 6. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (friends, knight), 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:pg8447:6:47
# text = They were loth to own that he was evil and cruel of heart.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	cop	_	_
3	loth	loth	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
4	to	to	PART	TO	_	5	mark	_	_
5	own	own	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	xcomp	_	_
6	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	9	mark	_	_
7	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
8	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	cop	_	_
9	evil	evil	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	ccomp	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
11	cruel	cruel	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	conj	_	_
12	of	of	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
13	heart	heart	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | friends *= friend* |  |  |  |  | loth *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **own** | to-infinitive | friends *= friend* *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn own-100.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Pivot |
| 3 | **is** | past | knight |  |  |  |  | evil *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **be** |  | knight *not said here* |  |  |  |  | of heart | 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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