---
title: Proverbs 9:17 (JPS 1917) — 'Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant.' · tree and pragmatics
description: 'Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant.' Who acts: Stolen waters, bread. Proverbs 9:17 in JPS 1917 with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Proverbs 9:17 · JPS 1917

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'Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant.'

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**Who acts:** Stolen waters, bread · **What happens:** steal, be, eat · **To what, where:** bread, secret

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This is Proverbs 9:17 · JPS 1917 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 (Stolen waters, bread), 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:PRO:256
# text = 'Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant.'
1	'	'	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	_
2	Stolen	steal	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	3	amod	_	_
3	waters	water	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	nsubj	_	_
4	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
5	sweet	sweet	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
8	bread	bread	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	_
9	eaten	eat	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	8	acl	_	_
10	in	in	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
11	secret	secret	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	_
12	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	13	cop	_	_
13	pleasant	pleasant	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	conj	_	_
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
15	'	'	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **steal** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **is** | present | Stolen waters |  |  |  |  | sweet *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **eat** | participle |  | bread *not said here* |  | secret |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **is** | present | bread |  |  |  |  | pleasant *property* | 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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מַֽיִם־גְּנוּבִ֥ים יִמְתָּ֑קוּ וְלֶ֖חֶם סְתָרִ֣ים יִנְעָֽם׃

[Proverbs 9:17: the Hebrew tree, its pragmatics and the Targum →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/ketuvim/PRO.9.17/)

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**Source.** The Holy Scriptures according to the Masoretic Text, Jewish Publication Society, 1917, from eBible.org: public domain. Sentence `jps:PRO:256` 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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- ← previous: [Proverbs 9:16 (JPS)](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/ketuvim/jps/PRO.255/)
- next →: [Proverbs 9:18 (JPS)](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/ketuvim/jps/PRO.257/)
- ↑ back to [Proverbs 9:17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/ketuvim/PRO.9.17/)