---
title: Exodus 23:4 (JPS 1917) — If thou meet thine enemy's ox or his ass going astray, thou shalt su… · tree and pragmatics
description: If thou meet thine enemy's ox or his ass going astray, thou shalt surely bring it back to him again. Who acts: thou, ox. Exodus 23:4 in JPS 1917 with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Exodus 23:4 · JPS 1917

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If thou meet thine enemy's ox or his ass going astray, thou shalt surely bring it back to him again.

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**Who acts:** thou, ox · **What happens:** meet, go, bring back · **To what, where:** ox, ass, man

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This is Exodus 23:4 · 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 (thou, ox), 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:651
# text = If thou meet thine enemy's ox or his ass going astray, thou shalt surely bring it back to him again.
1	If	if	SCONJ	IN	_	3	mark	_	_
2	thou	thou	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=2|PronType=Prs|Style=Arch	3	nsubj	_	_
3	meet	meet	VERB	VBP	Mood=Sub|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	17	advcl	_	_
4	thine	thy	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs|Style=Arch	5	nmod:poss	_	_
5	enemy	enemy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nmod:poss	_	_
6	's	's	PART	POS	_	5	case	_	_
7	ox	ox	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
8	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
9	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	10	nmod:poss	_	_
10	ass	ass	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	conj	_	_
11	going	go	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	7	acl	_	_
12	astray	astray	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	_
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
14	thou	thou	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=2|PronType=Prs|Style=Arch	17	nsubj	_	_
15	shalt	shall	AUX	MD	Style=Arch|VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	_
16	surely	surely	ADV	RB	_	17	advmod	_	_
17	bring	bring	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
18	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	obj	_	_
19	back	back	ADV	RB	_	17	advmod	_	_
20	to	to	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
21	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	obl	_	_
22	again	again	ADV	RB	_	17	advmod	_	_
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	17	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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- form: statement
- act: assert
- voice: character
- polarity: none
- teacher: kept the draft

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **meet** *a condition, not said to happen* | present | thou | thine enemy's ox or man's ass |  |  |  |  | vn meet-36.3-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent ox=Co-Agent |
| 2 | **go** | gerund | thine enemy's ox or man's ass *not said here* |  |  |  |  | astray *property* | vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **bring back** | shall | thou | ass | man |  | again | surely *property* | vn bring-11.3-1 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent it=Theme to he=Destination |

<!-- .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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כִּ֣י תִפְגַּ֞ע שׁ֧וֹר אֹֽיִבְךָ֛ א֥וֹ חֲמֹר֖וֹ תֹּעֶ֑ה הָשֵׁ֥ב תְּשִׁיבֶ֖נּוּ לֽוֹ׃ס

[Exodus 23:4: the Hebrew tree, its pragmatics and Targum Onkelos →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/torah/EXO.23.4/)

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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:651` 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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