---
title: Jeremiah 13:23 (JPS 1917) — Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? · tree and pragmatics
description: Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? Who acts: Ethiopian. Jeremiah 13:23 in JPS 1917 with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Jeremiah 13:23 · JPS 1917, sentence 1 of 2

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Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots?

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**Who acts:** Ethiopian · **What happens:** change · **To what, where:** skin

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This is Jeremiah 13:23 · JPS 1917, sentence 1 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 (Ethiopian), 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:JER:394
# text = Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots?
1	Can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	Ethiopian	Ethiopian	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	change	change	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
5	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	6	nmod:poss	_	_
6	skin	skin	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	_
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
8	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	leopard	leopard	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	conj	_	_
11	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	12	nmod:poss	_	_
12	spots	spot	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	conj	_	_
13	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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- form: yes/no question
- act: ask
- voice: character
- polarity: neg
- indirect: yes
- teacher: changed act=ask, indirect=1, polarity=neg, voice=character

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **change** | can | the Ethiopian or the leopard | Judah's skin and Judah's spots |  |  |  |  | vn dress-41.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent skin=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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הֲיַהֲפֹ֤ךְ כּוּשִׁי֙ עוֹר֔וֹ וְנָמֵ֖ר חֲבַרְבֻּרֹתָ֑יו גַּם־אַתֶּם֙ תּוּכְל֣וּ לְהֵיטִ֔יב לִמֻּדֵ֖י הָרֵֽעַ׃

[Jeremiah 13:23: the Hebrew tree, its pragmatics and Targum Jonathan →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/neviim/JER.13.23/)

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This verse in JPS 1917:

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1. **Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots?**
2. [Then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/neviim/jps/JER.395/)

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**Source.** The Holy Scriptures according to the Masoretic Text, Jewish Publication Society, 1917, from eBible.org: public domain. Sentence `jps:JER:394` 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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