---
title: Ecclesiastes 10:2 (JPS 1917) — A wise man's understanding is at his right hand; but a fool's unders… · tree and pragmatics
description: A wise man's understanding is at his right hand; but a fool's understanding at his left. Who acts: understanding, wise man, fool. Ecclesiastes 10:2 in JPS 1917 with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Ecclesiastes 10:2 · JPS 1917

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A wise man's understanding is at his right hand; but a fool's understanding at his left.

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**Who acts:** understanding, wise man, fool · **What happens:** be, understand · **To what, where:** right hand, left

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This is Ecclesiastes 10:2 · 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 (understanding, wise man, fool), 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:189
# text = A wise man's understanding is at his right hand; but a fool's understanding at his left.
1	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	wise	wise	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nmod:poss	_	_
4	's	's	PART	POS	_	3	case	_	_
5	understanding	understanding	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	_
6	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	10	cop	_	_
7	at	at	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
8	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	10	nmod:poss	_	_
9	right	right	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	hand	hand	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
11	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	16	punct	_	_
12	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
13	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	fool	fool	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nmod:poss	_	_
15	's	's	PART	POS	_	14	case	_	_
16	understanding	understanding	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	conj	_	_
17	at	at	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
18	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	19	nmod:poss	_	_
19	left	left	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nmod	_	_
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | present | a wise man's understanding |  |  | man's right hand but a fool's understanding at man's left |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **understand** |  | a wise man |  |  |  |  |  | nom understanding «cognition transitive»: poss=agent |
| 3 | **understand** |  | a fool |  |  | man's left |  |  | nom understanding «cognition transitive»: poss=agent at=place |

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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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לֵ֤ב חָכָם֙ לִֽימִינ֔וֹ וְלֵ֥ב כְּסִ֖יל לִשְׂמֹאלֽוֹ׃

[Ecclesiastes 10:2: the Hebrew tree, its pragmatics and the Targum →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/ketuvim/ECC.10.2/)

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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:189` 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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