---
title: Judges 15:16 (JPS 1917) — And Samson said: With the jawbone of an ass, heaps upon heaps, with… · tree and pragmatics
description: And Samson said: With the jawbone of an ass, heaps upon heaps, with the jawbone of an ass have I smitten a thousand men. Who acts: Samson, I. Judges 15:16 in JPS 1917 with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/neviim/jps/JDG.463/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [Tanakh](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tanakh/) / [Nevi'im](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/neviim/) / [Judges](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/neviim/JDG/) / [chapter 15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/neviim/JDG/15/) / [15:16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/neviim/JDG.15.16/) / JPS 1

# Judges 15:16 · JPS 1917

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
And Samson said: With the jawbone of an ass, heaps upon heaps, with the jawbone of an ass have I smitten a thousand men.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Samson, I · **What happens:** say, smite · **To what, where:** thousand men · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is Judges 15:16 · 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 (Samson, I), 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:463
# text = And Samson said: With the jawbone of an ass, heaps upon heaps, with the jawbone of an ass have I smitten a thousand men.
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	3	cc	_	_
2	Samson	Samson	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	3	punct	_	_
5	With	with	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	jawbone	jawbone	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	obl	_	_
8	of	of	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	ass	ass	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nmod	_	_
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
12	heaps	heap	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	conj	_	_
13	upon	upon	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
14	heaps	heap	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	nmod	_	_
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
16	with	with	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	jawbone	jawbone	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	obl	_	_
19	of	of	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
20	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	ass	ass	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nmod	_	_
22	have	have	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	24	aux	_	_
23	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	24	nsubj	_	_
24	smitten	smite	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	3	ccomp	_	_
25	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	27	det	_	_
26	thousand	thousand	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	27	nummod	_	_
27	men	man	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	24	obj	_	_
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- sa -->
- form: statement
- act: narrate
- voice: narrator
- polarity: none
- teacher: kept the draft

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Samson |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **smite** | present · perfect | I | a thousand men |  |  |  | with the jawbone of a ass and heaps upon heaps; with the jawbone of a ass | vn hit-18.1 «NP V NP PP.instrument»: agent=Agent man=Patient with jawbone=Instrument |

<!-- .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 -->
וַיֹּ֣אמֶר שִׁמְשׁ֔וֹן בִּלְחִ֣י הַחֲמ֔וֹר חֲמ֖וֹר חֲמֹרָתָ֑יִם בִּלְחִ֣י הַחֲמ֔וֹר הִכֵּ֖יתִי אֶ֥לֶף אִֽישׁ׃

[Judges 15:16: the Hebrew tree, its pragmatics and Targum Jonathan →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/neviim/JDG.15.16/)

<!-- div src -->

**Source.** The Holy Scriptures according to the Masoretic Text, Jewish Publication Society, 1917, from eBible.org: public domain. Sentence `jps:JDG:463` 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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [Judges 15:15 (JPS)](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/neviim/jps/JDG.462/)
- next →: [Judges 15:17 (JPS)](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/neviim/jps/JDG.464/)
- ↑ back to [Judges 15:16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/neviim/JDG.15.16/)