---
title: Isaiah 52:4 (JPS 1917) — For thus saith the Lord GOD: My people went down aforetime into Egyp… · tree and pragmatics
description: For thus saith the Lord GOD: My people went down aforetime into Egypt to sojourn there; and the Assyrian oppressed them without cause. Who acts: Lord GOD, people, Assyrian. Isaiah 52:4 in JPS 1917 with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Isaiah 52:4 · JPS 1917

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For thus saith the Lord GOD: My people went down aforetime into Egypt to sojourn there; and the Assyrian oppressed them without cause.

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**Who acts:** Lord GOD, people, Assyrian · **What happens:** say, go down, sojourn, oppress · **To what, where:** Egypt, people · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is Isaiah 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 (Lord GOD, people, Assyrian), 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:ISA:1159
# text = For thus saith the Lord GOD: My people went down aforetime into Egypt to sojourn there; and the Assyrian oppressed them without cause.
1	For	for	SCONJ	IN	_	3	mark	_	_
2	thus	thus	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
3	saith	say	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Style=Arch|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	10	parataxis	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	Lord	Lord	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	6	compound	_	_
6	GOD	GOD	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
7	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	3	punct	_	_
8	My	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	9	nmod:poss	_	_
9	people	people	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	nsubj	_	_
10	went	go	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
11	down	down	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	_
12	aforetime	aforetime	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	_
13	into	into	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
14	Egypt	Egypt	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	10	obl	_	_
15	to	to	PART	TO	_	16	mark	_	_
16	sojourn	sojourn	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	advcl	_	_
17	there	there	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	16	advmod	_	_
18	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	22	punct	_	_
19	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	Assyrian	Assyrian	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	22	nsubj	_	_
22	oppressed	oppress	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	conj	_	_
23	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	22	obj	_	_
24	without	without	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
25	cause	cause	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	obl	_	_
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- sa -->
- form: statement
- act: assert
- voice: narrator
- polarity: none
- teacher: kept the draft

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | present | the Lord GOD |  |  |  |  | thus *property* | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **go down** | past | My people |  |  | Egypt |  | aforetime, down *property* | vn calibratable\_cos-45.6.1-1 «NP.attribute V»: agent=Attribute |
| 3 | **sojourn** | to-infinitive | My people *not said here* |  |  | there |  |  | vn weekend-56 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **oppress** | past | the Assyrian | people |  |  |  | without cause | 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 -->
כִּ֣י כֹ֤ה אָמַר֙ אֲדֹנָ֣י יְהוִ֔ה מִצְרַ֛יִם יָֽרַד־עַמִּ֥י בָרִֽאשֹׁנָ֖ה לָג֣וּר שָׁ֑ם וְאַשּׁ֖וּר בְּאֶ֥פֶס עֲשָׁקֽוֹ׃

[Isaiah 52:4: the Hebrew tree, its pragmatics and Targum Jonathan →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/neviim/ISA.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:ISA:1159` 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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