---
title: Psalms 78:56 (JPS 1917) — Yet they tried and provoked God, the Most High, and kept not His tes… · tree and pragmatics
description: Yet they tried and provoked God, the Most High, and kept not His testimonies; Who acts: people, God. Psalms 78:56 in JPS 1917 with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Psalms 78:56 · JPS 1917

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Yet they tried and provoked God, the Most High, and kept not His testimonies;

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**Who acts:** people, God · **What happens:** try, provoke, not keep, testify · **To what, where:** God, testimonies

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This is Psalms 78:56 · 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 (people, God), 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:PSA:1383
# text = Yet they tried and provoked God, the Most High, and kept not His testimonies;
1	Yet	yet	CCONJ	CC	_	3	cc	_	_
2	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	tried	try	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
5	provoked	provoke	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
6	God	God	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	_
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
9	Most	most	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	10	flat	_	_
10	High	high	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	6	appos	_	_
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
13	kept	keep	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
14	not	not	ADV	RB	Polarity=Neg	13	advmod	_	_
15	His	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	16	nmod:poss	_	_
16	testimonies	testimony	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	obj	_	_
17	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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- form: statement
- act: narrate
- voice: narrator
- polarity: none
- teacher: changed act=narrate

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **try** | past | people |  |  |  |  |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V ADV-Middle»: agent=Experiencer |
| 2 | **provoke** | past | people *not said here* | God |  |  |  |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Stimulus god=Experiencer |
| 3 | **not** **keep** | past | people *not said here* | God's testimonies |  |  |  |  | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent testimony=Theme |
| 4 | **testify** |  | God |  |  |  |  |  | nom testimony «communication intransitive»: poss=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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וַיְנַסּ֣וּ וַ֭יַּמְרוּ אֶת־אֱלֹהִ֣ים עֶלְי֑וֹן וְ֝עֵדוֹתָ֗יו לֹ֣א שָׁמָֽרוּ׃

[Psalms 78:56: the Hebrew tree, its pragmatics and the Targum →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/ketuvim/PSA.78.56/)

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**Source.** The Holy Scriptures according to the Masoretic Text, Jewish Publication Society, 1917, from eBible.org: public domain. Sentence `jps:PSA:1383` 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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