---
title: Ecclesiastes 12:8 (JPS 1917) — Vanity of vanities, saith Koheleth; all is vanity. · tree and pragmatics
description: Vanity of vanities, saith Koheleth; all is vanity. Who acts: Koheleth, all. Ecclesiastes 12:8 in JPS 1917 with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Ecclesiastes 12:8 · JPS 1917

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Vanity of vanities, saith Koheleth; all is vanity.

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**Who acts:** Koheleth, all · **What happens:** say, be · **To what, where:** vanity · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is Ecclesiastes 12:8 · 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 (Koheleth, all), 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:226
# text = Vanity of vanities, saith Koheleth; all is vanity.
1	Vanity	vanity	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
2	of	of	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
3	vanities	vanity	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	1	nmod	_	_
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
5	saith	say	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Style=Arch|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	1	parataxis	_	_
6	Koheleth	Koheleth	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
7	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	10	punct	_	_
8	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	10	nsubj	_	_
9	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	10	cop	_	_
10	vanity	vanity	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	1	parataxis	_	_
11	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	1	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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- form: statement
- act: assert
- voice: narrator
- polarity: neg
- teacher: changed polarity=neg

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | present | Koheleth |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **is a** | present | all | vanity |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

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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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הֲבֵ֧ל הֲבָלִ֛ים אָמַ֥ר הַקּוֹהֶ֖לֶת הַכֹּ֥ל הָֽבֶל׃

[Ecclesiastes 12:8: the Hebrew tree, its pragmatics and the Targum →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/ketuvim/ECC.12.8/)

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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:226` 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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