---
title: Isaiah 40:8 (JPS 1917) — The grass withereth, the flower fadeth; but the word of our God shal… · tree and pragmatics
description: The grass withereth, the flower fadeth; but the word of our God shall stand for ever.' Who acts: grass, flower, word. Isaiah 40:8 in JPS 1917 with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Isaiah 40:8 · JPS 1917

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
The grass withereth, the flower fadeth; but the word of our God shall stand for ever.'

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**Who acts:** grass, flower, word · **What happens:** wither, fade, stand, word · **To what, where:** God

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This is Isaiah 40:8 · 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 (grass, flower, word), 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:843
# text = The grass withereth, the flower fadeth; but the word of our God shall stand for ever.'
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	grass	grass	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	withereth	wither	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Style=Arch|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	flower	flower	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	_
7	fadeth	fade	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Style=Arch|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
8	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	16	punct	_	_
9	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	word	word	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nsubj	_	_
12	of	of	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	our	our	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	14	nmod:poss	_	_
14	God	God	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	11	nmod	_	_
15	shall	shall	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
16	stand	stand	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	conj	_	_
17	for	for	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
18	ever	ever	ADV	RB	PronType=Ind	16	obl	_	_
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
20	'	'	PUNCT	''	_	3	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 | **wither** | present | the grass |  |  |  |  |  | vn entity\_specific\_cos-45.5 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient |
| 2 | **fade** | present | the flower |  |  |  |  |  | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient |
| 3 | **stand** | shall | the word of our God |  |  |  |  |  | vn admire-31.2 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Experiencer for ever=Attribute |
| 4 | **word** |  |  | our God |  |  |  |  | nom word «communication transitive»: of=patient |

<!-- .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 -->
יָבֵ֥שׁ חָצִ֖יר נָ֣בֵֽל צִ֑יץ וּדְבַר־אֱלֹהֵ֖ינוּ יָק֥וּם לְעוֹלָֽם׃ס

[Isaiah 40:8: the Hebrew tree, its pragmatics and Targum Jonathan →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/neviim/ISA.40.8/)

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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:843` 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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