---
title: Psalms 54:4 (JPS 1917) — O God, hear my prayer; give ear to the words of my mouth. · tree and pragmatics
description: O God, hear my prayer; give ear to the words of my mouth. Who acts: you, my. Psalms 54:4 in JPS 1917 with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Psalms 54:4 · JPS 1917

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O God, hear my prayer; give ear to the words of my mouth.

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**Who acts:** you, my · **What happens:** hear, give, pray, word · **To what, where:** prayer, ear, words, mouth

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This is Psalms 54:4 · 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 (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:885
# text = O God, hear my prayer; give ear to the words of my mouth.
1	O	o	INTJ	UH	_	2	discourse	_	_
2	God	God	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	4	vocative	_	_
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
4	hear	hear	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	6	nmod:poss	_	_
6	prayer	prayer	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	_
7	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	8	punct	_	_
8	give	give	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
9	ear	ear	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	_
10	to	to	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	words	word	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	obl	_	_
13	of	of	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	15	nmod:poss	_	_
15	mouth	mouth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nmod	_	_
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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- form: command
- act: request
- voice: character
- polarity: none
- teacher: changed polarity=none

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **hear** | imperative | you *not said here* | my prayer |  |  |  | God *vocative* | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V S»: agent=Experiencer prayer=Stimulus |
| 2 | **give** | infinitive | you *not said here* | ear | the words of my mouth |  |  |  | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP PP.recipient»: agent=Agent ear=Theme to word=Recipient |
| 3 | **pray** |  | my |  |  |  |  |  | nom prayer «act intransitive»: poss=agent |
| 4 | **word** |  |  | my mouth |  |  |  |  | nom word «communication transitive»: of=patient |

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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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אֱ֭לֹהִים שְׁמַ֣ע תְּפִלָּתִ֑י הַ֝אֲזִ֗ינָה לְאִמְרֵי־פִֽי׃

[Psalms 54:4: the Hebrew tree, its pragmatics and the Targum →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/ketuvim/PSA.54.4/)

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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:885` 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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