---
title: But no sooner was he in the smithy than he felt himself a prisoner. — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: But no sooner was he in the smithy than he felt himself a prisoner. Who acts: Smith. A sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Wicked Hornet, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Wicked Hornet, sentence 65

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But no sooner was he in the smithy than he felt himself a prisoner.

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**Who acts:** Smith · **What happens:** be, feel · **To what, where:** smithy, Smith

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This is a sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Wicked Hornet. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Smith), 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:pg66819:5:65
# text = But no sooner was he in the smithy than he felt himself a prisoner.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
2	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	3	det	_	_
3	sooner	soon	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	8	advmod	_	_
4	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	cop	_	_
5	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
6	in	in	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	smithy	smithy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
9	than	than	SCONJ	IN	_	11	mark	_	_
10	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
11	felt	feel	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	advcl	_	_
12	himself	himself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	11	obj	_	_
13	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	prisoner	prisoner	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	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 | Smith |  |  | the smithy |  | soon *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **feel** | past | Smith | Smith |  |  |  | a prisoner *obj* | vn conjecture-29.5-2 «NP V NP to be NP»: agent=Agent himself=Theme prisoner=Eventuality |

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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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