---
title: Judges 5:8 (JPS 1917) — They chose new gods; then was war in the gates; was there a shield o… · tree and pragmatics
description: They chose new gods; then was war in the gates; was there a shield or spear seen among forty thousand in Israel? Who acts: rulers, war, shield. Judges 5:8 in JPS 1917 with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Judges 5:8 · JPS 1917

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They chose new gods; then was war in the gates; was there a shield or spear seen among forty thousand in Israel?

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**Who acts:** rulers, war, shield · **What happens:** choose, be, see · **To what, where:** new gods, gates, shield

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This is Judges 5:8 · 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 (rulers, war, shield), 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:JDG:126
# text = They chose new gods; then was war in the gates; was there a shield or spear seen among forty thousand in Israel?
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	chose	choose	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	new	new	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	gods	god	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obj	_	_
5	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	7	punct	_	_
6	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	7	advmod	_	_
7	was	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	_
8	war	war	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	_
9	in	in	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	gates	gate	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	obl	_	_
12	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	13	punct	_	_
13	was	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	_
14	there	there	PRON	EX	_	13	expl	_	_
15	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	shield	shield	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	_
17	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
18	spear	spear	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	conj	_	_
19	seen	see	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	16	acl	_	_
20	among	among	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
21	forty	forty	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	22	compound	_	_
22	thousand	thousand	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	19	obl	_	_
23	in	in	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
24	Israel	Israel	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	22	nmod	_	_
25	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	13	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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- form: yes/no question
- act: assert
- voice: character
- polarity: none
- indirect: yes
- teacher: changed act=assert, indirect=1, voice=character

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **choose** | past | rulers *= ruler* | new gods |  |  |  |  | vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent god=Theme |
| 2 | **be** | past | war |  |  | the gates | then |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in gate=Location |
| 3 | **be** | past | a shield or spear |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **see** | participle |  | a shield or spear *not said here* |  |  |  | among forty thousand in Israel | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |

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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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יִבְחַר֙ אֱלֹהִ֣ים חֲדָשִׁ֔ים אָ֖ז לָחֶ֣ם שְׁעָרִ֑ים מָגֵ֤ן אִם־יֵֽרָאֶה֙ וָרֹ֔מַח בְּאַרְבָּעִ֥ים אֶ֖לֶף בְּיִשְׂרָאֵֽל׃

[Judges 5:8: the Hebrew tree, its pragmatics and Targum Jonathan →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/neviim/JDG.5.8/)

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**Source.** The Holy Scriptures according to the Masoretic Text, Jewish Publication Society, 1917, from eBible.org: public domain. Sentence `jps:JDG:126` 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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