---
title: Judges 9:53 (JPS 1917) — And a certain woman cast an upper millstone upon Abimelech's head, a… · tree and pragmatics
description: And a certain woman cast an upper millstone upon Abimelech's head, and broke his skull. Who acts: certain woman. Judges 9:53 in JPS 1917 with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Judges 9:53 · JPS 1917

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And a certain woman cast an upper millstone upon Abimelech's head, and broke his skull.

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**Who acts:** certain woman · **What happens:** cast, break · **To what, where:** upper millstone, head, skull

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This is Judges 9:53 · 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 (certain woman), 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:313
# text = And a certain woman cast an upper millstone upon Abimelech's head, and broke his skull.
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
2	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
3	certain	certain	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	woman	woman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
5	cast	cast	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
7	upper	upper	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	millstone	millstone	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	_
9	upon	upon	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
10	Abimelech	Abimelech	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	12	nmod:poss	_	_
11	's	's	PART	POS	_	10	case	_	_
12	head	head	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
15	broke	break	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
16	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	17	nmod:poss	_	_
17	skull	skull	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obj	_	_
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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- form: statement
- act: assert
- 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 | **cast** | past | a certain woman | a upper millstone |  | Abimelech's head |  |  | vn throw-17.1 «NP V NP PP.destinations»: agent=Agent millstone=Theme upon head=Destination |
| 2 | **break** | past | a certain woman *not said here* | Abimelech's skull |  |  |  |  | vn hurt-40.8.3-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer skull=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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וַתַּשְׁלֵ֞ךְ אִשָּׁ֥ה אַחַ֛ת פֶּ֥לַח רֶ֖כֶב עַל־רֹ֣אשׁ אֲבִימֶ֑לֶךְ וַתָּ֖רִץ אֶת־גֻּלְגָּלְתּֽוֹ׃

[Judges 9:53: the Hebrew tree, its pragmatics and Targum Jonathan →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/neviim/JDG.9.53/)

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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:313` 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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