---
title: The beam was of red-hot iron and the handles were of living flame. — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: The beam was of red-hot iron and the handles were of living flame. Who acts: beam, handles. A sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Field of Serpents, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Field of Serpents, sentence 38

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The beam was of red-hot iron and the handles were of living flame.

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**Who acts:** beam, handles · **What happens:** be

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This is a sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Field of Serpents. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (beam, handles), 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:pg66819:24:38
# text = The beam was of red-hot iron and the handles were of living flame.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	beam	beam	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	cop	_	_
4	of	of	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
5	red	red	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	hot	hot	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	iron	iron	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	handles	handle	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	15	nsubj	_	_
12	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	cop	_	_
13	of	of	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	living	living	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
15	flame	flame	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | the beam |  |  |  |  | of red hot iron and living flame | tree rules |
| 2 | **is** | past | the handles |  |  |  |  | of living flame | 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:** «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, Project Gutenberg book 66819 (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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