---
title: The Smith’s heart was beating hard and fast like a sledge-hammer ben… — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: The Smith’s heart was beating hard and fast like a sledge-hammer beneath his waistcoat. Who acts: heart. A sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Recipe, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Recipe, sentence 19

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The Smith’s heart was beating hard and fast like a sledge-hammer beneath his waistcoat.

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**Who acts:** heart · **What happens:** beat

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This is a sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Recipe. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (heart), 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:pg66819:9:19
# text = The Smith’s heart was beating hard and fast like a sledge-hammer beneath his waistcoat.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	Smith	Smith	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	4	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	’s	's	PART	POS	_	2	case	_	_
4	heart	heart	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
5	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
6	beating	beat	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
7	hard	hard	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	6	advmod	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
9	fast	fast	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	7	conj	_	_
10	like	like	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
11	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
12	sledge	sledge	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	hammer	hammer	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	_
15	beneath	beneath	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	17	nmod:poss	_	_
17	waistcoat	waistcoat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **beat** | past · progressive | the Smith's heart |  |  |  |  | like a sledge hammer beneath heart's waistcoat; hard *property* | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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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