---
title: Genesis 37:12 (JPS 1917) — And his brethren went to feed their father's flock in Shechem. · tree and pragmatics
description: And his brethren went to feed their father's flock in Shechem. Who acts: brethren. Genesis 37:12 in JPS 1917 with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Genesis 37:12 · JPS 1917

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And his brethren went to feed their father's flock in Shechem.

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**Who acts:** brethren · **What happens:** go, feed · **To what, where:** flock, Shechem

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This is Genesis 37:12 · 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 (brethren), 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:GEN:1188
# text = And his brethren went to feed their father's flock in Shechem.
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	brethren	brethren	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nsubj	_	_
4	went	go	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
6	feed	feed	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	advcl	_	_
7	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
8	father	father	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nmod:poss	_	_
9	's	's	PART	POS	_	8	case	_	_
10	flock	flock	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	_
11	in	in	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	Shechem	Shechem	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	_
13	.	.	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 | **go** | past | Joseph's brethren |  |  |  |  |  | vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **feed** | to-infinitive | Joseph's brethren *not said here* | brethren's father's flock |  | Shechem |  |  | vn fit-54.3 «NP V NP PP.location»: agent=Agent flock=Value in shechem=Location |

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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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וַיֵּלְכ֖וּ אֶחָ֑יו לִרְע֛וֹת אֶׄתׄ־צֹ֥אןאֲבִיהֶ֖ם בִּשְׁכֶֽם׃

[Genesis 37:12: the Hebrew tree, its pragmatics and Targum Onkelos →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/torah/GEN.37.12/)

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**Source.** The Holy Scriptures according to the Masoretic Text, Jewish Publication Society, 1917, from eBible.org: public domain. Sentence `jps:GEN:1188` 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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