---
title: Psalms 139:23 (JPS 1917) — Search me, O God, and know my heart, try me, and know my thoughts; · tree and pragmatics
description: Search me, O God, and know my heart, try me, and know my thoughts; Who acts: you, my. Psalms 139:23 in JPS 1917 with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Psalms 139:23 · JPS 1917

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Search me, O God, and know my heart, try me, and know my thoughts;

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**Who acts:** you, my · **What happens:** search, know, try, think · **To what, where:** me, heart, thoughts

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This is Psalms 139:23 · 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 (you, my), 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:2549
# text = Search me, O God, and know my heart, try me, and know my thoughts;
1	Search	search	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
2	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	1	obj	_	_
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
4	O	o	INTJ	UH	_	5	discourse	_	_
5	God	God	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	1	vocative	_	_
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
8	know	know	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	1	conj	_	_
9	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	10	nmod:poss	_	_
10	heart	heart	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	_
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
12	try	try	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	1	conj	_	_
13	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	12	obj	_	_
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
16	know	know	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	1	conj	_	_
17	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	18	nmod:poss	_	_
18	thoughts	thought	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	obj	_	_
19	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	1	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- sa -->
- form: command
- act: request
- voice: character
- polarity: none
- teacher: kept the draft

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **search** | imperative | you *not said here* | me |  |  |  | God *vocative* | vn search-35.2 «NP V NP PP.theme»: agent=Agent i=Location |
| 2 | **know** | infinitive | you *not said here* | my heart |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Experiencer heart=Stimulus |
| 3 | **try** | infinitive | you *not said here* | me |  |  |  |  | vn try-61.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent i=Eventuality |
| 4 | **know** | infinitive | you *not said here* | my thoughts |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Experiencer thought=Stimulus |
| 5 | **think** |  | my |  |  |  |  |  | nom thought «cognition transitive»: poss=agent |

<!-- .note -->
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}

<!-- .vhe dir=rtl lang=hbo -->
חָקְרֵ֣נִי אֵ֭ל וְדַ֣ע לְבָבִ֑י בְּ֝חָנֵ֗נִי וְדַ֣ע שַׂרְעַפָּֽי׃

[Psalms 139:23: the Hebrew tree, its pragmatics and the Targum →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/ketuvim/PSA.139.23/)

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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:2549` 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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