---
title: Song of Songs 8:8 (JPS 1917) — We have a little sister, and she hath no breasts; what shall we do f… · tree and pragmatics
description: We have a little sister, and she hath no breasts; what shall we do for our sister in the day when she shall be spoken for? Who acts: We, hand. Song of Songs 8:8 in JPS 1917 with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/ketuvim/jps/SNG.127/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [Tanakh](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tanakh/) / [Ketuvim](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/ketuvim/) / [Song of Songs](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/ketuvim/SNG/) / [chapter 8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/ketuvim/SNG/8/) / [8:8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/ketuvim/SNG.8.8/) / JPS 1

# Song of Songs 8:8 · JPS 1917

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
We have a little sister, and she hath no breasts; what shall we do for our sister in the day when she shall be spoken for?

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** We, hand · **What happens:** have, do, speak · **To what, where:** little sister, breasts, hand · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is Song of Songs 8:8 · 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 (We, hand), 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:SNG:127
# text = We have a little sister, and she hath no breasts; what shall we do for our sister in the day when she shall be spoken for?
1	We	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	have	have	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
4	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	sister	sister	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
8	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
9	hath	have	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Style=Arch|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
10	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	11	det	_	_
11	breasts	breast	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	obj	_	_
12	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	16	punct	_	_
13	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	16	obj	_	_
14	shall	shall	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
15	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
16	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	parataxis	_	_
17	for	for	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
18	our	our	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	19	nmod:poss	_	_
19	sister	sister	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl	_	_
20	in	in	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
21	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	day	day	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl	_	_
23	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	27	advmod	_	_
24	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	27	nsubj:pass	_	_
25	shall	shall	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	27	aux	_	_
26	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	27	aux:pass	_	_
27	spoken	speak	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	22	acl:relcl	_	_
28	for	for	ADV	RB	_	27	advmod	_	_
29	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- sa -->
- form: statement
- act: offer
- voice: character
- polarity: none
- indirect: yes
- teacher: kept the draft

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** | present | We | a little sister |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent sister=Patient |
| 2 | **have** | present | hand | no breasts |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent breast=Patient |
| 3 | **do** | shall | we |  |  |  | day | for our sister | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent what=Eventuality |
| 4 | **speak** *speech: other* | shall · passive |  | hand |  |  |  | for *property* | tree rules |

<!-- .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 -->
אָח֥וֹת לָ֙נוּ֙ קְטַנָּ֔ה וְשָׁדַ֖יִם אֵ֣ין לָ֑הּ מַֽה־נַּעֲשֶׂה֙ לַאֲחֹתֵ֔נוּ בַּיּ֖וֹם שֶׁיְּדֻבַּר־בָּֽהּ׃

[Song of Songs 8:8: the Hebrew tree, its pragmatics and the Targum →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/ketuvim/SNG.8.8/)

<!-- div src -->

**Source.** The Holy Scriptures according to the Masoretic Text, Jewish Publication Society, 1917, from eBible.org: public domain. Sentence `jps:SNG:127` 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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [Song of Songs 8:7 (JPS)](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/ketuvim/jps/SNG.126/)
- next →: [Song of Songs 8:9 (JPS)](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/ketuvim/jps/SNG.128/)
- ↑ back to [Song of Songs 8:8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/ketuvim/SNG.8.8/)