---
title: Ecclesiastes 10:18 (JPS 1917) — By slothfulness the rafters sink in; and through idleness of the han… · tree and pragmatics
description: By slothfulness the rafters sink in; and through idleness of the hands the house leaketh. Who acts: rafters, house. Ecclesiastes 10:18 in JPS 1917 with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Ecclesiastes 10:18 · JPS 1917

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By slothfulness the rafters sink in; and through idleness of the hands the house leaketh.

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**Who acts:** rafters, house · **What happens:** sink in, leak · **To what, where:** idleness

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This is Ecclesiastes 10:18 · 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 (rafters, house), 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:205
# text = By slothfulness the rafters sink in; and through idleness of the hands the house leaketh.
1	By	by	ADP	IN	_	2	case	_	_
2	slothfulness	slothfulness	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	rafters	rafter	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	nsubj	_	_
5	sink	sink	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	in	in	ADP	RP	_	5	compound:prt	_	_
7	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	16	punct	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
9	through	through	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
10	idleness	idleness	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl	_	_
11	of	of	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	hands	hand	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	nmod	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	house	house	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nsubj	_	_
16	leaketh	leak	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Style=Arch|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sink in** | present | the rafters |  |  |  |  | by slothfulness | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient |
| 2 | **leak** | present | the house |  |  | idleness of the hands |  |  | vn substance\_emission-43.4-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme through idleness=Location |

<!-- .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}

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בַּעֲצַלְתַּ֖יִם יִמַּ֣ךְ הַמְּקָרֶ֑ה וּבְשִׁפְל֥וּת יָדַ֖יִם יִדְלֹ֥ף הַבָּֽיִת׃

[Ecclesiastes 10:18: the Hebrew tree, its pragmatics and the Targum →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/ketuvim/ECC.10.18/)

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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:205` 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 10:17 (JPS)](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/ketuvim/jps/ECC.204/)
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