---
title: Song of Songs 5:6 (JPS 1917) — My soul failed me when he spoke. · tree and pragmatics
description: My soul failed me when he spoke. Who acts: soul. Song of Songs 5:6 in JPS 1917 with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Song of Songs 5:6 · JPS 1917, sentence 2 of 3

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My soul failed me when he spoke.

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**Who acts:** soul · **What happens:** fail, speak · **To what, where:** me · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is Song of Songs 5:6 · JPS 1917, sentence 2 of 3 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 (soul), 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:72
# text = My soul failed me when he spoke.
1	My	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	2	nmod:poss	_	_
2	soul	soul	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	failed	fail	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	3	obj	_	_
5	when	when	SCONJ	WRB	_	7	mark	_	_
6	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
7	spoke	speak	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	advcl	_	_
8	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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- form: statement
- act: assert
- 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 | **fail** | past | My soul | me |  |  |  |  | vn succeed-74-3-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent i=Eventuality |
| 2 | **speak** *speech: other* | past | soul |  |  |  |  |  | vn talk-37.5 «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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פָּתַ֤חְתִּֽי אֲנִי֙ לְדוֹדִ֔י וְדוֹדִ֖י חָמַ֣ק עָבָ֑ר נַפְשִׁי֙ יָֽצְאָ֣ה בְדַבְּר֔וֹ בִּקַּשְׁתִּ֙יהוּ֙ וְלֹ֣א מְצָאתִ֔יהוּ קְרָאתִ֖יו וְלֹ֥א עָנָֽנִי׃

[Song of Songs 5:6: the Hebrew tree, its pragmatics and the Targum →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/ketuvim/SNG.5.6/)

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This verse in JPS 1917:

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1. [I opened to my beloved; but my beloved had turned away, and was gone.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/ketuvim/jps/SNG.71/)
2. **My soul failed me when he spoke.**
3. [I sought him, but I could not find him; I called him, but he gave me no answer.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/ketuvim/jps/SNG.73/)

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**Source.** The Holy Scriptures according to the Masoretic Text, Jewish Publication Society, 1917, from eBible.org: public domain. Sentence `jps:SNG:72` 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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