---
title: Twas to them an unknown land; that did I hear well from their speech. — Morien: A Metrical Romance Rendered into English… · tree and pragmatics
description: Twas to them an unknown land; that did I hear well from their speech. Who acts: unknown land, knights. A sentence of «Morien: A Metrical Romance Rendered into English Prose from the Mediæval Dutch» by Jessie L. Weston, Opening, part 9, 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 9, sentence 90

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Twas to them an unknown land; that did I hear well from their speech.

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**Who acts:** unknown land, knights · **What happens:** hear, speak · **To what, where:** unknown land, speech · **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 9. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (unknown land, knights), 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:pg8447:9:90
# text = Twas to them an unknown land; that did I hear well from their speech.
1	Twas	twa	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	nsubj	_	_
2	to	to	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
3	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	1	nmod	_	_
4	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	unknown	unknown	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	land	land	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	11	punct	_	_
8	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	11	nsubj	_	_
9	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
10	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
11	hear	hear	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	acl:relcl	_	_
12	well	well	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	11	advmod	_	_
13	from	from	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	15	nmod:poss	_	_
15	speech	speech	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **hear** | past · do-support | a unknown land  Twas to knights | a unknown land  Twas to knights *not said here* |  | knights's speech |  | I *nsubj*; well *property* | vn learn-14-2-1 «NP V NP PP.source»: agent=Agent land=Topic from speech=Source |
| 3 | **speak** |  | knights *= knight* |  |  |  |  |  | nom speech «communication transitive»: poss=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:** «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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