---
title: Isaiah 40:21 (JPS 1917) — Hath it not been told you from the beginning? · tree and pragmatics
description: Hath it not been told you from the beginning? Isaiah 40:21 in JPS 1917 with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Isaiah 40:21 · JPS 1917, sentence 2 of 3

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Hath it not been told you from the beginning?

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**What happens:** not tell · **To what, where:** oak, you, beginning · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is Isaiah 40:21 · 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: 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:859
# text = Hath it not been told you from the beginning?
1	Hath	have	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Style=Arch|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
2	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj:pass	_	_
3	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	5	advmod	_	_
4	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	5	aux:pass	_	_
5	told	tell	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
6	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	5	iobj	_	_
7	from	from	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	beginning	beginning	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
10	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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- form: yes/no question
- act: ask
- 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 | **not** **tell** *speech: assert* | present · perfect · passive |  | oak | you |  | from the beginning |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: subject=Recipient you=Topic |

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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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הֲל֤וֹא תֵֽדְעוּ֙ הֲל֣וֹא תִשְׁמָ֔עוּ הֲל֛וֹא הֻגַּ֥ד מֵרֹ֖אשׁ לָכֶ֑ם הֲלוֹא֙ הֲבִ֣ינֹתֶ֔ם מוֹסְד֖וֹת הָאָֽרֶץ׃

[Isaiah 40:21: the Hebrew tree, its pragmatics and Targum Jonathan →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/neviim/ISA.40.21/)

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This verse in JPS 1917:

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1. [Know ye not? hear ye not?](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/neviim/jps/ISA.858/)
2. **Hath it not been told you from the beginning?**
3. [Have ye not understood the foundations of the earth?](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/neviim/jps/ISA.860/)

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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:859` 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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