---
title: But the tongs pinched him worse than before, and the hammer beat him… — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: But the tongs pinched him worse than before, and the hammer beat him still harder, and the Smith answered: “Not so, not so! Who acts: tongs, hammer, 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 ev
---

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# The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Wicked Hornet, sentence 73

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
But the tongs pinched him worse than before, and the hammer beat him still harder, and the Smith answered: “Not so, not so!

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**Who acts:** tongs, hammer, Smith · **What happens:** pinch, beat, answer · **To what, where:** 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 (tongs, hammer, 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:pg66819:5:73
# text = But the tongs pinched him worse than before, and the hammer beat him still harder, and the Smith answered: “Not so, not so!
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	tongs	tong	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nsubj	_	_
4	pinched	pinch	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	obj	_	_
6	worse	bad	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	4	xcomp	_	_
7	than	than	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	before	before	ADV	RB	_	6	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	hammer	hammer	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	_
13	beat	beat	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
14	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	obj	_	_
15	still	still	ADV	RB	_	16	advmod	_	_
16	harder	hard	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	13	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
18	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	Smith	Smith	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	21	nsubj	_	_
21	answered	answer	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	25	punct	_	_
23	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	25	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	Not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	25	advmod	_	_
25	so	so	ADV	RB	_	21	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	28	punct	_	_
27	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	28	advmod	_	_
28	so	so	ADV	RB	_	25	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **pinch** | past | the tongs | Smith |  |  |  | bad *property* | vn steal-10.5 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent he=Theme |
| 2 | **beat** | past | the hammer | Smith |  |  | still | hard *property* | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location he=Theme |
| 3 | **answer** *speech: assert* | past | the Smith |  |  |  |  |  | vn reciprocate-112-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .note -->
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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