---
title: Esther 4:12 (JPS 1917) — And they told to Mordecai Esther's words. · tree and pragmatics
description: And they told to Mordecai Esther's words. Who acts: servants, Mordecai. Esther 4:12 in JPS 1917 with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/ketuvim/jps/EST.74/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [Tanakh](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tanakh/) / [Ketuvim](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/ketuvim/) / [Esther](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/ketuvim/EST/) / [chapter 4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/ketuvim/EST/4/) / [4:12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/ketuvim/EST.4.12/) / JPS 1

# Esther 4:12 · JPS 1917

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
And they told to Mordecai Esther's words.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** servants, Mordecai · **What happens:** tell, word · **To what, where:** words · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is Esther 4:12 · 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 (servants, Mordecai), 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:EST:74
# text = And they told to Mordecai Esther's words.
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	3	cc	_	_
2	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	told	tell	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	to	to	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
5	Mordecai	Mordecai	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	8	nmod:poss	_	_
6	Esther	Esther	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	flat	_	_
7	's	's	PART	POS	_	6	case	_	_
8	words	word	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obj	_	_
9	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- sa -->
- 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 | **tell** *speech: assert* | past | servants *= servant* | Mordecai's words |  |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent word=Recipient |
| 2 | **word** |  | Mordecai |  |  |  |  |  | nom word «communication transitive»: poss=agent |

<!-- .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}

<!-- .vhe dir=rtl lang=hbo -->
וַיַּגִּ֣ידוּ לְמָרְדֳּכָ֔י אֵ֖ת דִּבְרֵ֥י אֶסְתֵּֽר׃פ

[Esther 4:12: the Hebrew tree, its pragmatics and the Targum →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/ketuvim/EST.4.12/)

<!-- div src -->

**Source.** The Holy Scriptures according to the Masoretic Text, Jewish Publication Society, 1917, from eBible.org: public domain. Sentence `jps:EST:74` 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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [Esther 4:11 (JPS)](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/ketuvim/jps/EST.73/)
- next →: [Esther 4:13 (JPS)](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/ketuvim/jps/EST.75/)
- ↑ back to [Esther 4:12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/ketuvim/EST.4.12/)