Genesis 9:23 · JPS 1917

And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were backward, and they saw not their father's nakedness.

Who acts: Shem, faces · What happens: take, lay, go, cover, be, not see · To what, where: garment, shoulders, nakedness

This is Genesis 9:23 · JPS 1917 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 (Shem, faces), 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	And	and	CCONJ	_	5 took	cc
2	Shem	Shem	PROPN	Number=Sing	5 took	nsubj
3	and	and	CCONJ	_	4 Japheth	cc
4	Japheth	Japheth	PROPN	Number=Sing	2 Shem	conj
5	took	take	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
6	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	7 garment	det
7	garment	garment	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 took	obj
8	,	,	PUNCT	_	10 laid	punct
9	and	and	CCONJ	_	10 laid	cc
10	laid	lay	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	5 took	conj
11	it	it	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	10 laid	obj
12	upon	upon	ADP	_	15 shoulders	case
13	both	both	DET	PronType=Tot	15 shoulders	det:predet
14	their	their	PRON	Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	15 shoulders	nmod:poss
15	shoulders	shoulder	NOUN	Number=Plur	10 laid	obl
16	,	,	PUNCT	_	18 went	punct
17	and	and	CCONJ	_	18 went	cc
18	went	go	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	5 took	conj
19	backward	backward	ADV	_	18 went	advmod
20	,	,	PUNCT	_	22 covered	punct
21	and	and	CCONJ	_	22 covered	cc
22	covered	cover	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	18 went	conj
23	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	24 nakedness	det
24	nakedness	nakedness	NOUN	Number=Sing	22 covered	obj
25	of	of	ADP	_	27 father	case
26	their	their	PRON	Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	27 father	nmod:poss
27	father	father	NOUN	Number=Sing	24 nakedness	nmod
28	;	;	PUNCT	_	33 backward	punct
29	and	and	CCONJ	_	33 backward	cc
30	their	their	PRON	Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	31 faces	nmod:poss
31	faces	face	NOUN	Number=Plur	33 backward	nsubj
32	were	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	33 backward	cop
33	backward	backward	ADJ	Degree=Pos	5 took	conj
34	,	,	PUNCT	_	37 saw	punct
35	and	and	CCONJ	_	37 saw	cc
36	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	37 saw	nsubj
37	saw	see	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	5 took	conj
38	not	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	37 saw	advmod
39	their	their	PRON	Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	40 father	nmod:poss
40	father	father	NOUN	Number=Sing	42 nakedness	nmod:poss
41	's	's	PART	_	40 father	case
42	nakedness	nakedness	NOUN	Number=Sing	37 saw	obj
43	.	.	PUNCT	_	5 took	punct

Pragmatics

form: statement
act: narrate
voice: narrator
polarity: none
teacher: kept the draft

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	other	roles by
1	take	past	Shem and Japheth	a garment			vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent garment=Theme
2	lay	past	Shem and Japheth not said here	garment	Shem's shoulders		vn put_spatial-9.2 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent it=Theme upon shoulder=Destination
3	go	past	Shem and Japheth not said here			backward property	vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
4	cover	past	Shem and Japheth not said here	the nakedness of Shem's father			vn fill-9.8-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme nakedness=Destination
5	is	past	Shem's faces			backward property	tree rules
6	not see	past	faces = face	Shem's father's nakedness			vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer nakedness=Stimulus

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

וַיִּקַּח֩ שֵׁ֨ם וָיֶ֜פֶת אֶת־הַשִּׂמְלָ֗ה וַיָּשִׂ֙ימוּ֙ עַל־שְׁכֶ֣ם שְׁנֵיהֶ֔ם וַיֵּֽלְכוּ֙ אֲחֹ֣רַנִּ֔ית וַיְכַסּ֕וּ אֵ֖ת עֶרְוַ֣ת אֲבִיהֶ֑ם וּפְנֵיהֶם֙ אֲחֹ֣רַנִּ֔ית וְעֶרְוַ֥ת אֲבִיהֶ֖ם לֹ֥א רָאֽוּ׃

Genesis 9:23: the Hebrew tree, its pragmatics and Targum Onkelos →

Source. The Holy Scriptures according to the Masoretic Text, Jewish Publication Society, 1917, from eBible.org: public domain. Sentence jps:GEN:240 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/GEN.240/