---
title: Exodus 21:18 (JPS 1917) — And if men contend, and one smite the other with a stone, or with hi… · tree and pragmatics
description: And if men contend, and one smite the other with a stone, or with his fist, and he die not, but keep his bed; Who acts: men, one, man. Exodus 21:18 in JPS 1917 with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Exodus 21:18 · JPS 1917

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
And if men contend, and one smite the other with a stone, or with his fist, and he die not, but keep his bed;

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**Who acts:** men, one, man · **What happens:** contend, smite, not die, keep · **To what, where:** other, bed

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This is Exodus 21:18 · 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 (men, one, 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:EXO:597
# text = And if men contend, and one smite the other with a stone, or with his fist, and he die not, but keep his bed;
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
2	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	4	mark	_	_
3	men	man	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nsubj	_	_
4	contend	contend	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
7	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	8	nsubj	_	_
8	smite	smite	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	other	other	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	_
11	with	with	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	stone	stone	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	_
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
15	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
16	with	with	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	18	nmod:poss	_	_
18	fist	fist	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	conj	_	_
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
20	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
21	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	22	nsubj	_	_
22	die	die	VERB	VBP	Mood=Sub|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
23	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	22	advmod	_	_
24	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	26	punct	_	_
25	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	26	cc	_	_
26	keep	keep	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	22	conj	_	_
27	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	28	nmod:poss	_	_
28	bed	bed	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	26	obj	_	_
29	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- sa -->
- form: statement
- act: assert
- voice: narrator
- polarity: none
- teacher: kept the draft

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **contend** | present | men |  |  |  |  |  | vn battle-36.4 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **smite** | present | one | the other |  |  |  | with a stone or man's fist | vn hit-18.1 «NP V NP PP.instrument»: agent=Agent other=Patient with stone=Instrument |
| 3 | **not** **die** | present | man |  |  |  |  |  | vn calibratable\_cos-45.6.1 «NP.attribute V»: agent=Attribute |
| 4 | **keep** | infinitive | man *not said here* | man's bed |  |  |  |  | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent bed=Theme |

<!-- .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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וְכִֽי־יְרִיבֻ֣ן אֲנָשִׁ֔ים וְהִכָּה־אִישׁ֙ אֶת־רֵעֵ֔הוּ בְּאֶ֖בֶן א֣וֹ בְאֶגְרֹ֑ף וְלֹ֥א יָמ֖וּת וְנָפַ֥ל לְמִשְׁכָּֽב׃

[Exodus 21:18: the Hebrew tree, its pragmatics and Targum Onkelos →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/torah/EXO.21.18/)

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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:597` 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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