---
title: Ecclesiastes 7:7 (JPS 1917) — Surely oppression turneth a wise man into a fool; and a gift destroy… · tree and pragmatics
description: Surely oppression turneth a wise man into a fool; and a gift destroyeth the understanding. Who acts: oppression, gift. Ecclesiastes 7:7 in JPS 1917 with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Ecclesiastes 7:7 · JPS 1917

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Surely oppression turneth a wise man into a fool; and a gift destroyeth the understanding.

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**Who acts:** oppression, gift · **What happens:** turn, destroy · **To what, where:** wise man, fool, understanding

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This is Ecclesiastes 7:7 · 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 (oppression, gift), 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 {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = jps:ECC:129
# text = Surely oppression turneth a wise man into a fool; and a gift destroyeth the understanding.
1	Surely	surely	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
2	oppression	oppression	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	turneth	turn	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Style=Arch|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	wise	wise	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
7	into	into	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	fool	fool	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	_
10	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	14	punct	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
12	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	gift	gift	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nsubj	_	_
14	destroyeth	destroy	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Style=Arch|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	understanding	understanding	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obj	_	_
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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- form: statement
- act: narrate
- voice: narrator
- polarity: pos
- teacher: kept the draft

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **turn** | present | oppression | a wise man |  | a fool |  | surely *property* | vn roll-51.3.1 «NP V NP PP.trajectory»: agent=Agent man=Theme into fool=Trajectory |
| 2 | **destroy** | present | a gift | the understanding |  |  |  |  | vn destroy-44 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent understanding=Patient |

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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.

## The Hebrew of this verse {#hebrew}

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כִּ֥י הָעֹ֖שֶׁק יְהוֹלֵ֣ל חָכָ֑ם וִֽיאַבֵּ֥ד אֶת־לֵ֖ב מַתָּנָֽה׃

[Ecclesiastes 7:7: the Hebrew tree, its pragmatics and the Targum →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/ketuvim/ECC.7.7/)

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**Source.** The Holy Scriptures according to the Masoretic Text, Jewish Publication Society, 1917, from eBible.org: public domain. Sentence `jps:ECC:129` 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.

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