---
title: Ecclesiastes 3:9 (JPS 1917) — What profit hath he that worketh in that he laboureth? · tree and pragmatics
description: What profit hath he that worketh in that he laboureth? Who acts: he. Ecclesiastes 3:9 in JPS 1917 with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Ecclesiastes 3:9 · JPS 1917

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What profit hath he that worketh in that he laboureth?

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**Who acts:** he · **What happens:** have, work in, labour · **To what, where:** profit

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This is Ecclesiastes 3:9 · 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 (he), 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:59
# text = What profit hath he that worketh in that he laboureth?
1	What	what	DET	WDT	PronType=Int	2	det	_	_
2	profit	profit	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
3	hath	have	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Style=Arch|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
5	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	6	nsubj	_	_
6	worketh	work	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Style=Arch|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	acl:relcl	_	_
7	in	in	ADP	IN	_	8	fixed	_	_
8	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	10	mark	_	_
9	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
10	laboureth	labour	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Style=Arch|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	advcl	_	_
11	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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- form: wh-question
- act: ask
- voice: character
- polarity: none
- teacher: changed voice=character

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** | present | he | what profit |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent profit=Patient |
| 2 | **work in** | present |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn employment-95.3 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **labour** | present | he |  |  |  |  |  | vn work-73.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

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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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מַה־יִּתְרוֹן֙ הָֽעוֹשֶׂ֔ה בַּאֲשֶׁ֖ר ה֥וּא עָמֵֽל׃

[Ecclesiastes 3:9: the Hebrew tree, its pragmatics and the Targum →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/ketuvim/ECC.3.9/)

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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:59` 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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