---
title: Genesis 18:20 (JPS 1917) — And the LORD said: 'Verily, the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great,… · tree and pragmatics
description: And the LORD said: 'Verily, the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and, verily, their sin is exceeding grievous. Who acts: LORD, cry, sin, Sodom. Genesis 18:20 in JPS 1917 with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/torah/jps/GEN.462/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [Tanakh](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tanakh/) / [Torah](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/torah/) / [Genesis](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/torah/GEN/) / [chapter 18](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/torah/GEN/18/) / [18:20](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/torah/GEN.18.20/) / JPS 1

# Genesis 18:20 · JPS 1917

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
And the LORD said: 'Verily, the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and, verily, their sin is exceeding grievous.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** LORD, cry, sin, Sodom · **What happens:** say, be, cry · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is Genesis 18:20 · 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 (LORD, cry, sin, Sodom), 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:462
# text = And the LORD said: 'Verily, the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and, verily, their sin is exceeding grievous.
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	LORD	LORD	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	16	punct	_	_
6	'	'	PUNCT	``	_	16	punct	_	_
7	Verily	verily	ADV	RB	_	16	advmod	_	_
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	cry	cry	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nsubj	_	_
11	of	of	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	Sodom	Sodom	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	10	nmod	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
14	Gomorrah	Gomorrah	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	12	conj	_	_
15	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	16	cop	_	_
16	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	ccomp	_	_
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	26	punct	_	_
18	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	26	cc	_	_
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
20	verily	verily	ADV	RB	_	26	advmod	_	_
21	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
22	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	23	nmod:poss	_	_
23	sin	sin	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	26	nsubj	_	_
24	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	26	cop	_	_
25	exceeding	exceeding	ADV	RB	_	26	advmod	_	_
26	grievous	grievous	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	conj	_	_
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- sa -->
- form: statement
- act: evaluate
- voice: character
- polarity: neg
- teacher: kept the draft

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the LORD |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **is** | present | the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah |  |  |  |  | great, verily *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **is** | present | men's sin |  |  |  |  | exceeding, grievous, verily *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **cry** |  | Sodom and Gomorrah |  |  |  |  |  | nom cry «communication intransitive»: of=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 -->
וַיֹּ֣אמֶר יְהוָ֔ה זַעֲקַ֛ת סְדֹ֥ם וַעֲמֹרָ֖ה כִּי־רָ֑בָּה וְחַ֨טָּאתָ֔ם כִּ֥י כָבְדָ֖ה מְאֹֽד׃

[Genesis 18:20: the Hebrew tree, its pragmatics and Targum Onkelos →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/torah/GEN.18.20/)

<!-- div src -->

**Source.** The Holy Scriptures according to the Masoretic Text, Jewish Publication Society, 1917, from eBible.org: public domain. Sentence `jps:GEN:462` 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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [Genesis 18:19 (JPS)](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/torah/jps/GEN.461/)
- next →: [Genesis 18:21 (JPS)](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/torah/jps/GEN.463/)
- ↑ back to [Genesis 18:20](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/torah/GEN.18.20/)