---
title: Exodus 17:4 (JPS 1917) — And Moses cried unto the LORD, saying: 'What shall I do unto this pe… · tree and pragmatics
description: And Moses cried unto the LORD, saying: 'What shall I do unto this people? they are almost ready to stone me.' Who acts: Moses, I, people. Exodus 17:4 in JPS 1917 with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Exodus 17:4 · JPS 1917

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And Moses cried unto the LORD, saying: 'What shall I do unto this people? they are almost ready to stone me.'

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**Who acts:** Moses, I, people · **What happens:** cry, say, do, be, stone · **To what, where:** me · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is Exodus 17:4 · 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 (Moses, I, people), 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:488
# text = And Moses cried unto the LORD, saying: 'What shall I do unto this people? they are almost ready to stone me.'
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	3	cc	_	_
2	Moses	Moses	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	cried	cry	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	unto	unto	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	LORD	LORD	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	_
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
8	saying	say	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	3	advcl	_	_
9	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	14	punct	_	_
10	'	'	PUNCT	``	_	14	punct	_	_
11	What	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	14	obj	_	_
12	shall	shall	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
13	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
14	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	ccomp	_	_
15	unto	unto	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	this	this	DET	DT	PronType=Dem	17	det	_	_
17	people	people	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	obl	_	_
18	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	14	punct	_	_
19	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	22	nsubj	_	_
20	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	22	cop	_	_
21	almost	almost	ADV	RB	_	22	advmod	_	_
22	ready	ready	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	parataxis	_	_
23	to	to	PART	TO	_	24	mark	_	_
24	stone	stone	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	22	xcomp	_	_
25	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	24	obj	_	_
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	22	punct	_	_
27	'	'	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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- form: exclamation
- act: disagree
- voice: character
- polarity: neg
- teacher: kept the draft

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **cry** *speech: express* | past | Moses |  |  |  |  | unto the LORD | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | gerund | Moses *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **do** | shall | I |  |  |  |  | unto this people | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent what=Eventuality |
| 4 | **is** | present | people |  |  |  |  | almost, ready *property* | tree rules |
| 5 | **stone** | to-infinitive | people *not said here* |  | me |  |  |  | vn pelt-17.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent i=Destination |

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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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וַיִּצְעַ֤ק מֹשֶׁה֙ אֶל־יְהוָ֣ה לֵאמֹ֔ר מָ֥ה אֶעֱשֶׂ֖ה לָעָ֣ם הַזֶּ֑ה ע֥וֹד מְעַ֖ט וּסְקָלֻֽנִי׃

[Exodus 17:4: the Hebrew tree, its pragmatics and Targum Onkelos →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/torah/EXO.17.4/)

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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:488` 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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