---
title: Ecclesiastes 2:2 (JPS 1917) — I said of laughter: 'It is mad'; and of mirth: 'What doth it accompl… · tree and pragmatics
description: I said of laughter: 'It is mad'; and of mirth: 'What doth it accomplish?' Who acts: I, laughter. Ecclesiastes 2:2 in JPS 1917 with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Ecclesiastes 2:2 · JPS 1917

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I said of laughter: 'It is mad'; and of mirth: 'What doth it accomplish?'

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**Who acts:** I, laughter · **What happens:** say, be, accomplish · **To what, where:** mirth · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is Ecclesiastes 2:2 · 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 (I, laughter), 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:19
# text = I said of laughter: 'It is mad'; and of mirth: 'What doth it accomplish?'
1	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	of	of	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
4	laughter	laughter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	_
5	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	9	punct	_	_
6	'	'	PUNCT	``	_	9	punct	_	_
7	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
8	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	9	cop	_	_
9	mad	mad	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	ccomp	_	_
10	'	'	PUNCT	''	_	9	punct	_	_
11	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	14	punct	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
13	of	of	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
14	mirth	mirth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	_
15	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	20	punct	_	_
16	'	'	PUNCT	``	_	20	punct	_	_
17	What	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	20	obj	_	_
18	doth	do	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Style=Arch|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	20	aux	_	_
19	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
20	accomplish	accomplish	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	conj	_	_
21	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	20	punct	_	_
22	'	'	PUNCT	''	_	20	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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- form: wh-question
- act: ask
- voice: character
- polarity: none
- teacher: kept the draft

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | I |  |  |  |  | of laughter; of mirth | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **is** | present | laughter |  |  |  |  | mad *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **accomplish** | present · do-support | laughter | mirth |  |  |  |  | vn complete-55.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent what=Eventuality |

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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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לִשְׂח֖וֹק אָמַ֣רְתִּי מְהוֹלָ֑ל וּלְשִׂמְחָ֖ה מַה־זֹּ֥ה עֹשָֽׂה׃

[Ecclesiastes 2:2: the Hebrew tree, its pragmatics and the Targum →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/ketuvim/ECC.2.2/)

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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:19` 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 2:1 (JPS)](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/ketuvim/jps/ECC.18/)
- next →: [Ecclesiastes 2:3 (JPS)](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/ketuvim/jps/ECC.20/)
- ↑ back to [Ecclesiastes 2:2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/ketuvim/ECC.2.2/)