---
title: Job 37:20 (JPS 1917) — Shall it be told Him that I would speak? · tree and pragmatics
description: Shall it be told Him that I would speak? Who acts: I. Job 37:20 in JPS 1917 with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Job 37:20 · JPS 1917, sentence 1 of 2

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Shall it be told Him that I would speak?

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**Who acts:** I · **What happens:** tell, speak · **To what, where:** reason, God · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is Job 37:20 · JPS 1917, sentence 1 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:993
# text = Shall it be told Him that I would speak?
1	Shall	shall	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
2	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	expl	_	_
3	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	aux:pass	_	_
4	told	tell	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
5	Him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	obj	_	_
6	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	9	mark	_	_
7	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
8	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	_
9	speak	speak	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	csubj:pass	_	_
10	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **tell** *speech: assert* | shall · passive |  | reason | God |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: he=Recipient |
| 2 | **speak** *speech: other* | would | I |  |  |  |  |  | vn talk-37.5 «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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הַֽיְסֻפַּר־ל֭וֹכִּ֣י אֲדַבֵּ֑ר אִֽם־אָ֥מַר אִ֝֗ישׁ כִּ֣י יְבֻלָּֽע׃

[Job 37:20: the Hebrew tree, its pragmatics and the Targum →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/ketuvim/JOB.37.20/)

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This verse in JPS 1917:

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1. **Shall it be told Him that I would speak?**
2. [Or should a man wish that he were swallowed up?](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/ketuvim/jps/JOB.994/)

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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:993` 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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