---
title: Job 25:4 (JPS 1917) — Or how can he be clean that is born of a woman? · tree and pragmatics
description: Or how can he be clean that is born of a woman? Who acts: man. Job 25:4 in JPS 1917 with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Job 25:4 · JPS 1917, sentence 2 of 2

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Or how can he be clean that is born of a woman?

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**Who acts:** man · **What happens:** be, bear

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This is Job 25:4 · 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 (man), 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:651
# text = Or how can he be clean that is born of a woman?
1	Or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
2	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	6	advmod	_	_
3	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
4	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
5	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	cop	_	_
6	clean	clean	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
7	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	9	nsubj:pass	_	_
8	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	9	aux:pass	_	_
9	born	bear	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	4	acl:relcl	_	_
10	of	of	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	woman	woman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	_
13	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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- form: yes/no question
- act: assert
- voice: character
- polarity: none
- indirect: yes
- teacher: changed act=assert, indirect=1, voice=character

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | can | man |  |  |  |  | clean *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **bear** | present · passive |  |  |  |  |  | of a woman | vn birth-28.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: subject=Patient |

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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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וּמַה־יִּצְדַּ֣ק אֱנ֣וֹשׁ עִם־אֵ֑ל וּמַה־יִּ֝זְכֶּ֗ה יְל֣וּד אִשָּֽׁה׃

[Job 25:4: the Hebrew tree, its pragmatics and the Targum →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/ketuvim/JOB.25.4/)

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This verse in JPS 1917:

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1. [How then can man be just with God?](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/ketuvim/jps/JOB.650/)
2. **Or how can he be clean that is born of a woman?**

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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:651` 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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