---
title: Genesis 17:3 (JPS 1917) — And Abram fell on his face; and God talked with him, saying: · tree and pragmatics
description: And Abram fell on his face; and God talked with him, saying: Who acts: Abram, God. Genesis 17:3 in JPS 1917 with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Genesis 17:3 · JPS 1917

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And Abram fell on his face; and God talked with him, saying:

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**Who acts:** Abram, God · **What happens:** fall, talk, say · **To what, where:** face · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is Genesis 17:3 · 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 (Abram, God), 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:416
# text = And Abram fell on his face; and God talked with him, saying:
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	3	cc	_	_
2	Abram	Abram	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	fell	fall	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	on	on	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	6	nmod:poss	_	_
6	face	face	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	_
7	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	10	punct	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
9	God	God	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	_
10	talked	talk	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
11	with	with	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	obl	_	_
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
14	saying	say	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	10	advcl	_	_
15	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	3	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 | **fall** | past | Abram |  |  | Abram's face |  |  | vn occur-48.3 «NP V PP»: agent=Theme on face=Location |
| 2 | **talk** | past | God |  |  |  |  | with Abram | vn talk-37.5 «NP V PP.co-agent»: agent=Agent with he=Co-Agent |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | gerund | God *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |

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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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וַיִּפֹּ֥ל אַבְרָ֖ם עַל־פָּנָ֑יו וַיְדַבֵּ֥ר אִתּ֛וֹ אֱלֹהִ֖ים לֵאמֹֽר׃

[Genesis 17:3: the Hebrew tree, its pragmatics and Targum Onkelos →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/torah/GEN.17.3/)

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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:416` 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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- ← previous: [Genesis 17:2 (JPS)](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/torah/jps/GEN.415/)
- next →: [Genesis 17:4 (JPS)](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/torah/jps/GEN.417/)
- ↑ back to [Genesis 17:3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/torah/GEN.17.3/)