---
title: Exodus 12:26 (JPS 1917) — And it shall come to pass, when your children shall say unto you: Wh… · tree and pragmatics
description: And it shall come to pass, when your children shall say unto you: What mean ye by this service? Who acts: thing, children, ye. Exodus 12:26 in JPS 1917 with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Exodus 12:26 · JPS 1917

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And it shall come to pass, when your children shall say unto you: What mean ye by this service?

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**Who acts:** thing, children, ye · **What happens:** come, pass, say, mean · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is Exodus 12:26 · 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 (thing, children, ye), 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:336
# text = And it shall come to pass, when your children shall say unto you: What mean ye by this service?
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
2	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	shall	shall	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	come	come	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
6	pass	pass	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	xcomp	_	_
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
8	when	when	SCONJ	WRB	_	12	mark	_	_
9	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	10	nmod:poss	_	_
10	children	child	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	nsubj	_	_
11	shall	shall	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
12	say	say	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	advcl	_	_
13	unto	unto	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
14	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	12	obl	_	_
15	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	17	punct	_	_
16	What	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	17	obj	_	_
17	mean	mean	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	parataxis	_	_
18	ye	ye	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=2|PronType=Prs|Style=Arch	17	nsubj	_	_
19	by	by	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
20	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	21	det	_	_
21	service	service	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obl	_	_
22	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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- form: yes/no question
- act: ask
- voice: character
- polarity: none
- indirect: yes
- teacher: changed voice=character

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come** | shall | thing |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **pass** | to-infinitive | thing *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | shall | your children |  |  |  |  | unto you | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **mean** | present | ye |  |  |  |  | by this service | vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent what=Topic |

<!-- .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}

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וְהָיָ֕ה כִּֽי־יֹאמְר֥וּ אֲלֵיכֶ֖ם בְּנֵיכֶ֑ם מָ֛ה הָעֲבֹדָ֥ה הַזֹּ֖את לָכֶֽם׃

[Exodus 12:26: the Hebrew tree, its pragmatics and Targum Onkelos →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/torah/EXO.12.26/)

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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:336` 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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