---
title: Sir Gawain, brother, tell me, for fain would I know the truth?" — Morien: A Metrical Romance Rendered into English… · tree and pragmatics
description: Sir Gawain, brother, tell me, for fain would I know the truth?" Who acts: Gawain, I. A sentence of «Morien: A Metrical Romance Rendered into English Prose from the Mediæval Dutch» by Jessie L. Weston, Opening, part 8, 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 8, sentence 81

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Sir Gawain, brother, tell me, for fain would I know the truth?"

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**Who acts:** Gawain, I · **What happens:** tell, know · **To what, where:** me, truth · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 8. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Gawain, I), 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:pg8447:8:81
# text = Sir Gawain, brother, tell me, for fain would I know the truth?"
1	Sir	Sir	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	2	nmod:desc	_	_
2	Gawain	Gawain	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
4	brother	brother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
6	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
7	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	6	iobj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
9	for	for	SCONJ	IN	_	13	mark	_	_
10	fain	fain	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	advmod	_	_
11	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
12	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
13	know	know	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	conj	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	truth	truth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **tell** *speech: assert* | infinitive | Gawain  Sir and brother |  | me |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent i=Recipient |
| 2 | **know** | would | I | the truth |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Experiencer truth=Stimulus |

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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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