---
title: Lamentations 2:20 (JPS 1917) — Shall the women eat their fruit, the children that are dandled in th… · tree and pragmatics
description: Shall the women eat their fruit, the children that are dandled in the hands? Who acts: women. Lamentations 2:20 in JPS 1917 with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Lamentations 2:20 · JPS 1917, sentence 2 of 3

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Shall the women eat their fruit, the children that are dandled in the hands?

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**Who acts:** women · **What happens:** eat, dandle · **To what, where:** fruit, children, hands

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This is Lamentations 2:20 · JPS 1917, sentence 2 of 3 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 (women), 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:LAM:50
# text = Shall the women eat their fruit, the children that are dandled in the hands?
1	Shall	shall	AUX	MD	Mood=Ind|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	women	woman	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nsubj	_	_
4	eat	eat	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
5	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	6	nmod:poss	_	_
6	fruit	fruit	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	_
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	children	child	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	appos	_	_
10	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	12	nsubj:pass	_	_
11	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	12	aux:pass	_	_
12	dandled	dandle	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	9	acl:relcl	_	_
13	in	in	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	hands	hand	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	obl	_	_
16	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **eat** | shall | the women | women's fruit |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent fruit=Patient |
| 2 | **dandle** | present · passive |  | the children |  | the hands |  |  | tree rules |

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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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רְאֵ֤ה יְהוָה֙ וְֽהַבִּ֔יטָה לְמִ֖י עוֹלַ֣לְתָּ כֹּ֑ה אִם־תֹּאכַ֨לְנָה נָשִׁ֤ים פִּרְיָם֙ עֹלֲלֵ֣י טִפֻּחִ֔ים אִם־יֵהָרֵ֛ג בְּמִקְדַּ֥שׁ אֲדֹנָ֖י כֹּהֵ֥ן וְנָבִֽיא׃ס

[Lamentations 2:20: the Hebrew tree, its pragmatics and the Targum →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/ketuvim/LAM.2.20/)

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This verse in JPS 1917:

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1. ['See, O LORD, and consider, to whom Thou hast done thus!](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/ketuvim/jps/LAM.49/)
2. **Shall the women eat their fruit, the children that are dandled in the hands?**
3. [Shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord?](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/ketuvim/jps/LAM.51/)

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**Source.** The Holy Scriptures according to the Masoretic Text, Jewish Publication Society, 1917, from eBible.org: public domain. Sentence `jps:LAM:50` 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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