---
title: Job 37:20 (JPS 1917) — Or should a man wish that he were swallowed up? · tree and pragmatics
description: Or should a man wish that he were swallowed up? Who acts: man. 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 2 of 2

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Or should a man wish that he were swallowed up?

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**Who acts:** man · **What happens:** wish, swallow up · **To what, where:** man · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is Job 37:20 · 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:994
# text = Or should a man wish that he were swallowed up?
1	Or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
2	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
5	wish	wish	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
6	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	9	mark	_	_
7	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj:pass	_	_
8	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	aux:pass	_	_
9	swallowed	swallow	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	5	ccomp	_	_
10	up	up	ADP	RP	_	9	compound:prt	_	_
11	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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- form: yes/no question
- act: ask
- voice: narrator
- polarity: none
- indirect: yes
- teacher: kept the draft

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **wish** | should | a man |  |  |  |  |  | vn wish-62 «NP V for NP S\_INF»: agent=Pivot clause=Theme |
| 2 | **swallow up** | past · passive |  | man |  |  |  |  | vn gobble-39.3 «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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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?](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/ketuvim/jps/JOB.993/)
2. **Or should a man wish that he were swallowed up?**

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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:994` 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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