Exodus 14:12 · JPS 1917, sentence 2 of 2
For it were better for us to serve the Egyptians, than that we should die in the wilderness.'
Who acts: us, we · What happens: be, serve, die · To what, where: Egyptians
This is Exodus 14:12 · JPS 1917, sentence 2 of 2 in the English of the Jewish Publication Society's 1917 translation, from Mova's open Bible corpus. The page gives the sentence's syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies, parsed by Mova and checked by a teacher model — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (us, we), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it. The original of the verse links back to its own tree and to the Targum.
The tree
The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)
| # | word | lemma | UPOS | features | head | relation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | For | for | SCONJ | _ | 4 better | mark |
| 2 | it | it | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 4 better | expl |
| 3 | were | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 4 better | cop |
| 4 | better | good | ADJ | Degree=Cmp | root | root |
| 5 | for | for | SCONJ | _ | 8 serve | mark |
| 6 | us | we | PRON | Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=1 PronType=Prs | 8 serve | nsubj |
| 7 | to | to | PART | _ | 8 serve | mark |
| 8 | serve | serve | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 4 better | csubj |
| 9 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 10 Egyptians | det |
| 10 | Egyptians | egyptian | PROPN | Number=Plur | 8 serve | obj |
| 11 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 16 die | punct |
| 12 | than | than | SCONJ | _ | 16 die | mark |
| 13 | that | that | SCONJ | _ | 12 than | fixed |
| 14 | we | we | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=1 PronType=Prs | 16 die | nsubj |
| 15 | should | should | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 16 die | aux |
| 16 | die | die | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 4 better | advcl |
| 17 | in | in | ADP | _ | 19 wilderness | case |
| 18 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 19 wilderness | det |
| 19 | wilderness | wilderness | NOUN | Number=Sing | 16 die | obl |
| 20 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 4 better | punct |
| 21 | ' | ' | PUNCT | _ | 4 better | punct |
Pragmatics
- form
- statement
- act
- narrate
- voice
- narrator
- polarity
- none
- teacher
- kept the draft
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | is | past | good property | tree rules | |||||
| 2 | serve | to-infinitive | us | the Egyptians | vn masquerade-29.6-2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent egyptian=Attribute | ||||
| 3 | die | should | we | in the wilderness | vn calibratable_cos-45.6.1 «NP.patient V PP.attribute»: agent=Patient in wilderness=Attribute |
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.
The Hebrew of this verse
הֲלֹא־זֶ֣ה הַדָּבָ֗ר אֲשֶׁר֩ דִּבַּ֨רְנוּ אֵלֶ֤יךָ בְמִצְרַ֙יִם֙ לֵאמֹ֔ר חֲדַ֥ל מִמֶּ֖נּוּ וְנַֽעַבְדָ֣ה אֶת־מִצְרָ֑יִם כִּ֣י ט֥וֹב לָ֙נוּ֙ עֲבֹ֣ד אֶת־מִצְרַ֔יִם מִמֻּתֵ֖נוּ בַּמִּדְבָּֽר׃
Exodus 14:12: the Hebrew tree, its pragmatics and Targum Onkelos →
This verse in JPS 1917:
- Is not this the word that we spoke unto thee in Egypt, saying: Let us alone, that we may serve the Egyptians?
- For it were better for us to serve the Egyptians, than that we should die in the wilderness.'
Source. The Holy Scriptures according to the Masoretic Text, Jewish Publication Society, 1917, from eBible.org: public domain. Sentence jps:EXO:397 of Mova's parse database.
The tree and the speech act come from Mova's cycle: the small model's draft, read by a large model as teacher, passed by Mova's gates (Elamur Cosmic License). The frames are read from the tree by Mova's frames reader (prag) when this page is built, the chapter read in order, so a pronoun may be resolved from an earlier sentence of the chapter.
This page in Markdown → https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/torah/jps/EXO.397/