---
title: Psalms 12:4 (JPS 1917) — May the LORD cut off all flattering lips, the tongue that speaketh p… · tree and pragmatics
description: May the LORD cut off all flattering lips, the tongue that speaketh proud things! Who acts: LORD, tongue. Psalms 12:4 in JPS 1917 with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Psalms 12:4 · JPS 1917

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May the LORD cut off all flattering lips, the tongue that speaketh proud things!

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**Who acts:** LORD, tongue · **What happens:** cut off, speak · **To what, where:** flattering lips, proud things · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is Psalms 12:4 · 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 (LORD, tongue), 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:149
# text = May the LORD cut off all flattering lips, the tongue that speaketh proud things!
1	May	may	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	LORD	LORD	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	cut	cut	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
5	off	off	ADP	RP	_	4	compound:prt	_	_
6	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	8	det	_	_
7	flattering	flatter	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	lips	lip	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obj	_	_
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	tongue	tongue	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	appos	_	_
12	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	13	nsubj	_	_
13	speaketh	speak	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Style=Arch|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	11	acl:relcl	_	_
14	proud	proud	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
15	things	thing	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	obj	_	_
16	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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- form: exclamation
- act: express
- voice: narrator
- polarity: pos
- teacher: changed act=express

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **cut off** | may | the LORD | all flattering lips |  |  |  |  | vn stop-55.4-1 «NP V NP.eventuality»: agent=Affector lip=Eventuality |
| 2 | **speak** *speech: other* | present | the tongue | proud things |  |  |  |  | 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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יַכְרֵ֣ת יְ֭הוָה כָּל־שִׂפְתֵ֣י חֲלָק֑וֹת לָ֝שׁ֗וֹן מְדַבֶּ֥רֶת גְּדֹלֽוֹת׃

[Psalms 12:4: the Hebrew tree, its pragmatics and the Targum →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/ketuvim/PSA.12.4/)

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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:149` 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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