---
title: Exodus 2:4 (JPS 1917) — And his sister stood afar off, to know what would be done to him. · tree and pragmatics
description: And his sister stood afar off, to know what would be done to him. Who acts: sister. Exodus 2:4 in JPS 1917 with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Exodus 2:4 · JPS 1917

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And his sister stood afar off, to know what would be done to him.

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**Who acts:** sister · **What happens:** stand off, know, do · **To what, where:** man · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is Exodus 2:4 · 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 (sister), 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:EXO:27
# text = And his sister stood afar off, to know what would be done to him.
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
2	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	3	nmod:poss	_	_
3	sister	sister	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	stood	stand	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	afar	afar	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
6	off	off	ADP	RP	_	4	compound:prt	_	_
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
8	to	to	PART	TO	_	9	mark	_	_
9	know	know	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	advcl	_	_
10	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	13	nsubj:pass	_	_
11	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
12	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	aux:pass	_	_
13	done	do	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	9	ccomp	_	_
14	to	to	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	obl	_	_
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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- form: statement
- act: narrate
- 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 | **stand off** | past | man's sister |  |  |  |  | afar *property* | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **know** | to-infinitive | man's sister *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V how S\_INF»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 3 | **do** | would · passive |  |  | man |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: subject=Eventuality |

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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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וַתֵּתַצַּ֥ב אֲחֹת֖וֹ מֵרָחֹ֑ק לְדֵעָ֕ה מַה־יֵּעָשֶׂ֖ה לֽוֹ׃

[Exodus 2:4: the Hebrew tree, its pragmatics and Targum Onkelos →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/torah/EXO.2.4/)

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**Source.** The Holy Scriptures according to the Masoretic Text, Jewish Publication Society, 1917, from eBible.org: public domain. Sentence `jps:EXO:27` 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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