---
title: Ecclesiastes 9:14 (JPS 1917) — there was a little city, and few men within it; and there came a gre… · tree and pragmatics
description: there was a little city, and few men within it; and there came a great king against it, and besieged it, and built great bulwarks against it; Who acts: great king. Ecclesiastes 9:14 in JPS 1917 with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Ecclesiastes 9:14 · JPS 1917

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
there was a little city, and few men within it; and there came a great king against it, and besieged it, and built great bulwarks against it;

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** great king · **What happens:** come, besiege, build · **To what, where:** sun, great bulwarks

<!-- .vabout -->
This is Ecclesiastes 9:14 · 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 (great king), 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:183
# text = there was a little city, and few men within it; and there came a great king against it, and besieged it, and built great bulwarks against it;
1	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	2	expl	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
4	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	city	city	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	_
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
8	few	few	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	men	man	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	conj	_	_
10	within	within	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
11	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	obl	_	_
12	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	15	punct	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
14	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	15	expl	_	_
15	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
16	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
17	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	amod	_	_
18	king	king	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nsubj	_	_
19	against	against	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
20	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	obl	_	_
21	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
22	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	23	cc	_	_
23	besieged	besiege	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	conj	_	_
24	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	23	obj	_	_
25	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	27	punct	_	_
26	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	27	cc	_	_
27	built	build	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	conj	_	_
28	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	29	amod	_	_
29	bulwarks	bulwark	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	27	obj	_	_
30	against	against	ADP	IN	_	31	case	_	_
31	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	27	obl	_	_
32	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- sa -->
- form: statement
- act: narrate
- voice: narrator
- polarity: pos
- teacher: changed act=narrate

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come** | past | a great king |  |  | sun; there |  |  | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme against it=Location |
| 2 | **besiege** | past | a great king *not said here* | sun |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **build** | past | a great king *not said here* | great bulwarks |  |  |  | against sun | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset bulwark=Product |

<!-- .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.

## The Hebrew of this verse {#hebrew}

<!-- .vhe dir=rtl lang=hbo -->
עִ֣יר קְטַנָּ֔ה וַאֲנָשִׁ֥ים בָּ֖הּ מְעָ֑ט וּבָֽא־אֵלֶ֜יהָ מֶ֤לֶךְ גָּדוֹל֙ וְסָבַ֣ב אֹתָ֔הּ וּבָנָ֥ה עָלֶ֖יהָ מְצוֹדִ֥ים גְּדֹלִֽים׃

[Ecclesiastes 9:14: the Hebrew tree, its pragmatics and the Targum →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/ketuvim/ECC.9.14/)

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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:183` 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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- ← previous: [Ecclesiastes 9:13 (JPS)](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/ketuvim/jps/ECC.182/)
- next →: [Ecclesiastes 9:15 (JPS)](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/ketuvim/jps/ECC.184/)
- ↑ back to [Ecclesiastes 9:14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/ketuvim/ECC.9.14/)