---
title: With reindeer fat they smeared the locks, and they greased the hinge… — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: With reindeer fat they smeared the locks, and they greased the hinges with butter, lest they should creak and make a rattling. Who acts: doors. A sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Flight, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Flight, sentence 23

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With reindeer fat they smeared the locks, and they greased the hinges with butter, lest they should creak and make a rattling.

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**Who acts:** doors · **What happens:** smear, grease, creak, make · **To what, where:** locks, hinges, rattling

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This is a sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Flight. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (doors), 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:pg66819:36:23
# text = With reindeer fat they smeared the locks, and they greased the hinges with butter, lest they should creak and make a rattling.
1	With	with	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
2	reindeer	reindeer	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	compound	_	_
3	fat	fat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
4	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	smeared	smear	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	locks	lock	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
10	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
11	greased	grease	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	hinges	hinge	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	obj	_	_
14	with	with	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	butter	butter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
17	lest	lest	SCONJ	IN	_	20	mark	_	_
18	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
19	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	20	aux	_	_
20	creak	creak	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	advcl	_	_
21	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
22	make	make	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	20	conj	_	_
23	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
24	rattling	rattling	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **smear** | past | doors *= door* | the locks |  |  |  | with reindeer fat | vn spray-9.7-1 «NP V NP.destination PP.theme»: agent=Agent lock=Destination with fat=Theme |
| 2 | **grease** | past | doors *= door* | the hinges |  |  |  | with butter | vn butter-9.9 «NP V NP PP.theme»: agent=Agent hinge=Destination with butter=Theme |
| 3 | **creak** | should | doors *= door* |  |  |  |  |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **make** | infinitive | doors *= door* *not said here* | a rattling |  |  |  |  | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset rattling=Product |

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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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