---
title: Psalms 52:4 (JPS 1917) — Thy tongue deviseth destruction; like a sharp razor, working deceitf… · tree and pragmatics
description: Thy tongue deviseth destruction; like a sharp razor, working deceitfully. Who acts: tongue. Psalms 52:4 in JPS 1917 with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Psalms 52:4 · JPS 1917

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Thy tongue deviseth destruction; like a sharp razor, working deceitfully.

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**Who acts:** tongue · **What happens:** devise, work · **To what, where:** destruction

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This is Psalms 52:4 · 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 (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:866
# text = Thy tongue deviseth destruction; like a sharp razor, working deceitfully.
1	Thy	thy	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs|Style=Arch	2	nmod:poss	_	_
2	tongue	tongue	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	deviseth	devise	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Style=Arch|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	destruction	destruction	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
5	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	9	punct	_	_
6	like	like	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
8	sharp	sharp	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	razor	razor	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	_
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
11	working	work	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	3	advcl	_	_
12	deceitfully	deceitfully	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	_
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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- form: statement
- act: assert
- voice: narrator
- polarity: neg
- teacher: changed polarity=neg

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **devise** | present | Thy tongue | destruction |  |  |  | like a sharp razor | vn establish-55.5-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent destruction=Patient |
| 2 | **work** | gerund | Thy tongue *not said here* |  |  |  |  | deceitfully *property* | vn employment-95.3 «NP V»: agent=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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הַ֭וּוֹת תַּחְשֹׁ֣ב לְשׁוֹנֶ֑ךָ כְּתַ֥עַר מְ֝לֻטָּ֗שׁ עֹשֵׂ֥ה רְמִיָּֽה׃

[Psalms 52:4: the Hebrew tree, its pragmatics and the Targum →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/ketuvim/PSA.52.4/)

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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:866` 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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