---
title: Proverbs 20:17 (JPS 1917) — Bread of falsehood is sweet to a man; but afterwards his mouth shall… · tree and pragmatics
description: Bread of falsehood is sweet to a man; but afterwards his mouth shall be filled with gravel. Who acts: Bread. Proverbs 20:17 in JPS 1917 with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Proverbs 20:17 · JPS 1917

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Bread of falsehood is sweet to a man; but afterwards his mouth shall be filled with gravel.

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**Who acts:** Bread · **What happens:** be, fill · **To what, where:** mouth

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This is Proverbs 20:17 · 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 (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:575
# text = Bread of falsehood is sweet to a man; but afterwards his mouth shall be filled with gravel.
1	Bread	bread	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
2	of	of	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
3	falsehood	falsehood	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	1	nmod	_	_
4	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
5	sweet	sweet	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
6	to	to	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
9	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	16	punct	_	_
10	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
11	afterwards	afterwards	ADV	RB	_	16	advmod	_	_
12	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	13	nmod:poss	_	_
13	mouth	mouth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nsubj:pass	_	_
14	shall	shall	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
15	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	16	aux:pass	_	_
16	filled	fill	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	5	conj	_	_
17	with	with	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
18	gravel	gravel	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl	_	_
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | present | Bread of falsehood |  |  |  |  | to a man; sweet *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **fill** | shall · passive |  | man's mouth |  |  |  | with gravel; afterwards *property* | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP V NP PP.instrument»: subject=Patient with gravel=Instrument |

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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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עָרֵ֣ב לָ֭אִישׁ לֶ֣חֶם שָׁ֑קֶר וְ֝אַחַ֗ר יִמָּֽלֵא־פִ֥יהוּ חָצָֽץ׃

[Proverbs 20:17: the Hebrew tree, its pragmatics and the Targum →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/ketuvim/PRO.20.17/)

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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:575` 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 20:16 (JPS)](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/ketuvim/jps/PRO.574/)
- next →: [Proverbs 20:18 (JPS)](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/ketuvim/jps/PRO.576/)
- ↑ back to [Proverbs 20:17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/ketuvim/PRO.20.17/)