---
title: Job 40:4 (JPS 1917) — I lay my hand upon my mouth. · tree and pragmatics
description: I lay my hand upon my mouth. Who acts: I. Job 40:4 in JPS 1917 with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Job 40:4 · JPS 1917, sentence 2 of 2

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I lay my hand upon my mouth.

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**Who acts:** I · **What happens:** lay · **To what, where:** hand, mouth

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This is Job 40:4 · JPS 1917, sentence 2 of 2 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 (I), 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:JOB:1096
# text = I lay my hand upon my mouth.
1	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	lay	lay	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	4	nmod:poss	_	_
4	hand	hand	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
5	upon	upon	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	7	nmod:poss	_	_
7	mouth	mouth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	_
8	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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- form: statement
- act: assert
- voice: narrator
- polarity: pos
- teacher: kept the draft

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **lay** | past | I | my hand |  | my mouth |  |  | vn put\_spatial-9.2 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent hand=Theme upon mouth=Destination |

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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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הֵ֣ן קַ֭לֹּתִי מָ֣ה אֲשִׁיבֶ֑ךָּ יָ֝דִ֗י שַׂ֣מְתִּי לְמוֹ־פִֽי׃

[Job 40:4: the Hebrew tree, its pragmatics and the Targum →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/ketuvim/JOB.40.4/)

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This verse in JPS 1917:

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1. [Behold, I am of small account; what shall I answer Thee?](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/ketuvim/jps/JOB.1095/)
2. **I lay my hand upon my mouth.**

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**Source.** The Holy Scriptures according to the Masoretic Text, Jewish Publication Society, 1917, from eBible.org: public domain. Sentence `jps:JOB:1096` 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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