---
title: He took her hands between his own, but there was no throbbing of lif… — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: He took her hands between his own, but there was no throbbing of life in them. Who acts: Smith, throbbing, life. A sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Golden Maiden, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Golden Maiden, sentence 116

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He took her hands between his own, but there was no throbbing of life in them.

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**Who acts:** Smith, throbbing, life · **What happens:** take, be, throb · **To what, where:** hands

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This is a sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Golden Maiden. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Smith, throbbing, life), 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:pg66819:31:116
# text = He took her hands between his own, but there was no throbbing of life in them.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	took	take	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	4	nmod:poss	_	_
4	hands	hand	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obj	_	_
5	between	between	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	7	nmod:poss	_	_
7	own	own	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
9	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
10	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	11	expl	_	_
11	was	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	_
12	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	13	det	_	_
13	throbbing	throbbing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	_
14	of	of	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	life	life	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nmod	_	_
16	in	in	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **take** | past | Smith | maid's hands |  |  |  | between Smith's own | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent hand=Theme |
| 2 | **be** | past | no throbbing of life in ears |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **throb** |  | life in ears |  |  |  |  |  | nom throbbing «event intransitive»: of=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:** «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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