---
title: Genesis 42:4 (JPS 1917) — But Benjamin, Joseph's brother, Jacob sent not with his brethren; fo… · tree and pragmatics
description: But Benjamin, Joseph's brother, Jacob sent not with his brethren; for he said: 'Lest peradventure harm befall him.' Who acts: Jacob, peradventure harm. Genesis 42:4 in JPS 1917 with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Genesis 42:4 · JPS 1917

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But Benjamin, Joseph's brother, Jacob sent not with his brethren; for he said: 'Lest peradventure harm befall him.'

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**Who acts:** Jacob, peradventure harm · **What happens:** not send, say, befall · **To what, where:** Jacob · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is Genesis 42:4 · 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 (Jacob, peradventure harm), 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:1364
# text = But Benjamin, Joseph's brother, Jacob sent not with his brethren; for he said: 'Lest peradventure harm befall him.'
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
2	Benjamin	Benjamin	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	9	dep	_	_
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
4	Joseph	Joseph	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	6	nmod:poss	_	_
5	's	's	PART	POS	_	4	case	_	_
6	brother	brother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	appos	_	_
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
8	Jacob	Jacob	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	_
9	sent	send	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
10	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	9	advmod	_	_
11	with	with	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	13	nmod:poss	_	_
13	brethren	brethren	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	obl	_	_
14	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	17	punct	_	_
15	for	for	SCONJ	IN	_	17	mark	_	_
16	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
17	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	advcl	_	_
18	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	23	punct	_	_
19	'	'	PUNCT	``	_	23	punct	_	_
20	Lest	lest	SCONJ	IN	_	23	mark	_	_
21	peradventure	peradventure	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	compound	_	_
22	harm	harm	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	nsubj	_	_
23	befall	befall	VERB	VBP	Mood=Sub|VerbForm=Fin	17	ccomp	_	_
24	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	23	obj	_	_
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	23	punct	_	_
26	'	'	PUNCT	''	_	23	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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- form: statement
- act: narrate
- voice: narrator
- polarity: none
- teacher: changed form=decl, act=narrate, voice=narrator

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **send** | past | Jacob |  |  |  |  | with Joseph's brethren | vn confine-92-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Jacob |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **befall** | present | peradventure harm | Jacob |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

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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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וְאֶת־בִּנְיָמִין֙ אֲחִ֣י יוֹסֵ֔ף לֹא־שָׁלַ֥ח יַעֲקֹ֖ב אֶת־אֶחָ֑יו כִּ֣י אָמַ֔ר פֶּן־יִקְרָאֶ֖נּוּ אָסֽוֹן׃

[Genesis 42:4: the Hebrew tree, its pragmatics and Targum Onkelos →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/torah/GEN.42.4/)

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**Source.** The Holy Scriptures according to the Masoretic Text, Jewish Publication Society, 1917, from eBible.org: public domain. Sentence `jps:GEN:1364` 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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