---
title: Deuteronomy 23:1 (JPS 1917) — A man shall not take his father's wife, and shall not uncover his fa… · tree and pragmatics
description: A man shall not take his father's wife, and shall not uncover his father's skirt. Who acts: man. Deuteronomy 23:1 in JPS 1917 with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Deuteronomy 23:1 · JPS 1917

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A man shall not take his father's wife, and shall not uncover his father's skirt.

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**Who acts:** man · **What happens:** not take, not uncover · **To what, where:** wife, skirt

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This is Deuteronomy 23:1 · 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 (man), 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:DEU:614
# text = A man shall not take his father's wife, and shall not uncover his father's skirt.
1	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
3	shall	shall	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	5	advmod	_	_
5	take	take	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
6	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	7	nmod:poss	_	_
7	father	father	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nmod:poss	_	_
8	's	's	PART	POS	_	7	case	_	_
9	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	_
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
12	shall	shall	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
13	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	14	advmod	_	_
14	uncover	uncover	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	conj	_	_
15	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	16	nmod:poss	_	_
16	father	father	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nmod:poss	_	_
17	's	's	PART	POS	_	16	case	_	_
18	skirt	skirt	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obj	_	_
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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- form: statement
- act: assert
- voice: narrator
- polarity: none
- teacher: changed act=assert

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **take** | shall | a man |  | man's father's wife |  |  |  | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP ADVP»: agent=Instrument wife=Destination |
| 2 | **not** **uncover** | shall | a man *not said here* | man's father's skirt |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

<!-- .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 -->
לֹא־יִקַּ֥ח אִ֖ישׁ אֶת־אֵ֣שֶׁת אָבִ֑יו וְלֹ֥א יְגַלֶּ֖ה כְּנַ֥ף אָבִֽיו׃ס

[Deuteronomy 23:1: the Hebrew tree, its pragmatics and Targum Onkelos →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/torah/DEU.23.1/)

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**Source.** The Holy Scriptures according to the Masoretic Text, Jewish Publication Society, 1917, from eBible.org: public domain. Sentence `jps:DEU:614` 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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