---
title: Psalms 140:4 (JPS 1917) — They have sharpened their tongue like a serpent; vipers' venom is un… · tree and pragmatics
description: They have sharpened their tongue like a serpent; vipers' venom is under their lips. Who acts: things, venom. Psalms 140:4 in JPS 1917 with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Psalms 140:4 · JPS 1917

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They have sharpened their tongue like a serpent; vipers' venom is under their lips.

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**Who acts:** things, venom · **What happens:** sharpen, be · **To what, where:** tongue, lips

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This is Psalms 140:4 · 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 (things, venom), 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:2555
# text = They have sharpened their tongue like a serpent; vipers' venom is under their lips.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	have	have	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
3	sharpened	sharpen	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
4	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	5	nmod:poss	_	_
5	tongue	tongue	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
6	like	like	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	serpent	serpent	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	_
9	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	16	punct	_	_
10	vipers	viper	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	nmod:poss	_	_
11	'	's	PART	POS	_	10	case	_	_
12	venom	venom	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nsubj	_	_
13	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	16	cop	_	_
14	under	under	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	16	nmod:poss	_	_
16	lips	lip	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	parataxis	_	_
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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- form: statement
- act: narrate
- 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 | **sharpen** | present · perfect | things *= thing* | things's tongue |  |  |  | like a serpent | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP V NP.patient»: agent=Agent tongue=Patient |
| 2 | **is** | present | vipers's venom |  |  | things's lips |  |  | 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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שָֽׁנֲנ֣וּ לְשׁוֹנָם֮ כְּֽמוֹ־נָ֫חָ֥שׁ חֲמַ֥ת עַכְשׁ֑וּב תַּ֖חַת שְׂפָתֵ֣ימוֹ סֶֽלָה׃

[Psalms 140:4: the Hebrew tree, its pragmatics and the Targum →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/ketuvim/PSA.140.4/)

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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:2555` 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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