---
title: Ecclesiastes 11:1 (JPS 1917) — Cast thy bread upon the waters, for thou shalt find it after many da… · tree and pragmatics
description: Cast thy bread upon the waters, for thou shalt find it after many days. Who acts: you, thou. Ecclesiastes 11:1 in JPS 1917 with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Ecclesiastes 11:1 · JPS 1917

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Cast thy bread upon the waters, for thou shalt find it after many days.

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**Who acts:** you, thou · **What happens:** cast, find · **To what, where:** bread, waters

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This is Ecclesiastes 11:1 · 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 (you, thou), 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:208
# text = Cast thy bread upon the waters, for thou shalt find it after many days.
1	Cast	cast	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
2	thy	thy	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs|Style=Arch	3	nmod:poss	_	_
3	bread	bread	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	1	obj	_	_
4	upon	upon	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	waters	water	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	1	obl	_	_
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
8	for	for	SCONJ	IN	_	11	mark	_	_
9	thou	thou	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=2|PronType=Prs|Style=Arch	11	nsubj	_	_
10	shalt	shall	AUX	MD	Style=Arch|VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
11	find	find	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	1	advcl	_	_
12	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	obj	_	_
13	after	after	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	many	many	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
15	days	day	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	obl	_	_
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	1	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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- form: command
- act: suggest
- voice: narrator
- polarity: none
- teacher: changed act=suggest

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **cast** | imperative | you *not said here* | thy bread |  | the waters |  |  | vn throw-17.1 «NP V NP PP.destinations»: agent=Agent bread=Theme upon water=Destination |
| 2 | **find** | shall | thou | bread |  |  | day |  | vn discover-84 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Topic |

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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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שַׁלַּ֥ח לַחְמְךָ֖ עַל־פְּנֵ֣י הַמָּ֑יִם כִּֽי־בְרֹ֥ב הַיָּמִ֖ים תִּמְצָאֶֽנּוּ׃

[Ecclesiastes 11:1: the Hebrew tree, its pragmatics and the Targum →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/ketuvim/ECC.11.1/)

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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:208` 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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