---
title: Genesis 16:1 (JPS 1917) — Now Sarai Abram's wife bore him no children; and she had a handmaid,… · tree and pragmatics
description: Now Sarai Abram's wife bore him no children; and she had a handmaid, an Egyptian, whose name was Hagar. Who acts: wife, name, Hagar. Genesis 16:1 in JPS 1917 with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Genesis 16:1 · JPS 1917

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Now Sarai Abram's wife bore him no children; and she had a handmaid, an Egyptian, whose name was Hagar.

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**Who acts:** wife, name, Hagar · **What happens:** bear, have, be, name · **To what, where:** children, Sarai, handmaid, Hagar

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This is Genesis 16:1 · 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 (wife, name, Hagar), 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:398
# text = Now Sarai Abram's wife bore him no children; and she had a handmaid, an Egyptian, whose name was Hagar.
1	Now	now	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	6	advmod	_	_
2	Sarai	Sarai	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	nmod:poss	_	_
3	Abram	Abram	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	2	flat	_	_
4	's	's	PART	POS	_	2	case	_	_
5	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
6	bore	bear	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	iobj	_	_
8	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	9	det	_	_
9	children	child	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	obj	_	_
10	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	13	punct	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
12	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
13	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	conj	_	_
14	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	handmaid	handmaid	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	_
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
17	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	Egyptian	Egyptian	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	15	appos	_	_
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
20	whose	whose	PRON	WP$	Poss=Yes|PronType=Rel	21	nmod:poss	_	_
21	name	name	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	nsubj	_	_
22	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	23	cop	_	_
23	Hagar	Hagar	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	18	acl:relcl	_	_
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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- form: statement
- act: assert
- voice: narrator
- polarity: none
- teacher: changed voice=narrator

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **bear** | past | Sarai's wife | no children | Sarai |  | now |  | vn birth-28.2-1-1 «NP V NP NP»: agent=Agent he=Beneficiary child=Patient |
| 2 | **have** | past | wife | a handmaid |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent handmaid=Patient |
| 3 | **is a** | past | Hagar's name | Hagar |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **name** |  | Hagar |  |  |  |  |  | nom name «communication transitive»: poss=agent |

<!-- .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}

<!-- .vhe dir=rtl lang=hbo -->
וְשָׂרַי֙ אֵ֣שֶׁת אַבְרָ֔ם לֹ֥א יָלְדָ֖ה ל֑וֹ וְלָ֛הּ שִׁפְחָ֥ה מִצְרִ֖ית וּשְׁמָ֥הּ הָגָֽר׃

[Genesis 16:1: the Hebrew tree, its pragmatics and Targum Onkelos →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/torah/GEN.16.1/)

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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:398` 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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