---
title: Isaiah 40:18 (JPS 1917) — Or what likeness will ye compare unto Him? · tree and pragmatics
description: Or what likeness will ye compare unto Him? Who acts: ye. Isaiah 40:18 in JPS 1917 with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Isaiah 40:18 · JPS 1917, sentence 2 of 2

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Or what likeness will ye compare unto Him?

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**Who acts:** ye · **What happens:** compare · **To what, where:** likeness

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This is Isaiah 40:18 · JPS 1917, sentence 2 of 2 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 (ye), 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:855
# text = Or what likeness will ye compare unto Him?
1	Or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
2	what	what	DET	WDT	PronType=Int	3	det	_	_
3	likeness	likeness	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	_
4	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
5	ye	ye	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=2|PronType=Prs|Style=Arch	6	nsubj	_	_
6	compare	compare	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
7	unto	unto	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	Him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	obl	_	_
9	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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- form: yes/no question
- act: ask
- voice: character
- polarity: none
- teacher: changed voice=character

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **compare** | future | ye | what likeness |  |  |  | unto God | vn amalgamate-22.2-2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent likeness=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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וְאֶל־מִ֖י תְּדַמְּי֣וּן אֵ֑ל וּמַה־דְּמ֖וּת תַּ֥עַרְכוּ לֽוֹ׃

[Isaiah 40:18: the Hebrew tree, its pragmatics and Targum Jonathan →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/neviim/ISA.40.18/)

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This verse in JPS 1917:

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1. [To whom then will ye liken God?](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/neviim/jps/ISA.854/)
2. **Or what likeness will ye compare unto Him?**

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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:855` 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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