---
title: Genesis 48:8 (JPS 1917) — And Israel beheld Joseph's sons, and said: 'Who are these?' · tree and pragmatics
description: And Israel beheld Joseph's sons, and said: 'Who are these?' Who acts: Israel. Genesis 48:8 in JPS 1917 with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Genesis 48:8 · JPS 1917

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And Israel beheld Joseph's sons, and said: 'Who are these?'

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**Who acts:** Israel · **What happens:** behold, say, be · **To what, where:** sons, these · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is Genesis 48:8 · 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 (Israel), 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:1583
# text = And Israel beheld Joseph's sons, and said: 'Who are these?'
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	3	cc	_	_
2	Israel	Israel	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	beheld	behold	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	Joseph	Joseph	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	6	nmod:poss	_	_
5	's	's	PART	POS	_	4	case	_	_
6	sons	son	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obj	_	_
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
9	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
10	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	9	punct	_	_
11	'	'	PUNCT	``	_	14	punct	_	_
12	Who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	14	nsubj	_	_
13	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	14	cop	_	_
14	these	this	PRON	DT	Number=Plur|PronType=Dem	9	ccomp	_	_
15	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	14	punct	_	_
16	'	'	PUNCT	''	_	14	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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- form: wh-question
- act: ask
- 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 | **behold** | past | Israel | Joseph's sons |  |  |  |  | vn sight-30.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer son=Stimulus |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Israel *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **is a** | present |  | these |  |  |  |  | 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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וַיַּ֥רְא יִשְׂרָאֵ֖ל אֶת־בְּנֵ֣י יוֹסֵ֑ף וַיֹּ֖אמֶר מִי־אֵֽלֶּה׃

[Genesis 48:8: the Hebrew tree, its pragmatics and Targum Onkelos →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/torah/GEN.48.8/)

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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:1583` 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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