---
title: Psalms 139:5 (JPS 1917) — Thou hast hemmed me in behind and before, and laid Thy hand upon me. · tree and pragmatics
description: Thou hast hemmed me in behind and before, and laid Thy hand upon me. Who acts: Thou. Psalms 139:5 in JPS 1917 with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Psalms 139:5 · JPS 1917

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Thou hast hemmed me in behind and before, and laid Thy hand upon me.

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**Who acts:** Thou · **What happens:** hem in, lay · **To what, where:** me, hand

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This is Psalms 139:5 · 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 (Thou), 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:2529
# text = Thou hast hemmed me in behind and before, and laid Thy hand upon me.
1	Thou	thou	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=2|PronType=Prs|Style=Arch	3	nsubj	_	_
2	hast	have	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Style=Arch|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
3	hemmed	hem	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
4	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	3	obj	_	_
5	in	in	ADP	RP	_	3	compound:prt	_	_
6	behind	behind	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
8	before	before	ADV	RB	_	6	conj	_	_
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
11	laid	lay	VERB	VBD	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	3	conj	_	_
12	Thy	thy	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs|Style=Arch	13	nmod:poss	_	_
13	hand	hand	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	_
14	upon	upon	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	11	obl	_	_
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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- form: statement
- act: assert
- voice: narrator
- polarity: none
- teacher: kept the draft

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **hem in** | present · perfect | Thou | me |  |  |  | behind *property* | vn nonverbal\_expression-40.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent i=Theme |
| 2 | **lay** | past | Thou *not said here* | Thy hand |  |  |  | upon me | vn put\_spatial-9.2 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent hand=Theme upon i=Destination |

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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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אָח֣וֹר וָקֶ֣דֶם צַרְתָּ֑נִי וַתָּ֖שֶׁת עָלַ֣י כַּפֶּֽכָה׃

[Psalms 139:5: the Hebrew tree, its pragmatics and the Targum →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/ketuvim/PSA.139.5/)

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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:2529` 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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