---
title: Leviticus 21:4 (JPS 1917) — He shall not defile himself, being a chief man among his people, to… · tree and pragmatics
description: He shall not defile himself, being a chief man among his people, to profane himself. Who acts: LORD. Leviticus 21:4 in JPS 1917 with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Leviticus 21:4 · JPS 1917

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He shall not defile himself, being a chief man among his people, to profane himself.

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**Who acts:** LORD · **What happens:** not defile, be, profane · **To what, where:** LORD, chief man

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This is Leviticus 21:4 · 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 (LORD), 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:LEV:610
# text = He shall not defile himself, being a chief man among his people, to profane himself.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	shall	shall	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
3	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	4	advmod	_	_
4	defile	defile	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
5	himself	himself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	4	obj	_	_
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
7	being	be	AUX	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	10	cop	_	_
8	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
9	chief	chief	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	advcl	_	_
11	among	among	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	people	people	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	nmod	_	_
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
15	to	to	PART	TO	_	16	mark	_	_
16	profane	profane	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	advcl	_	_
17	himself	himself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	16	obj	_	_
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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- form: statement
- act: assert
- voice: narrator
- polarity: neg
- teacher: changed act=assert

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **defile** | shall | LORD | LORD |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **is a** | gerund | LORD *not said here* | a chief man |  |  |  | among LORD's people | tree rules |
| 3 | **profane** | to-infinitive | LORD *not said here* | LORD |  |  |  |  | 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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לֹ֥א יִטַּמָּ֖א בַּ֣עַל בְּעַמָּ֑יו לְהֵ֖חַלּֽוֹ׃

[Leviticus 21:4: the Hebrew tree, its pragmatics and Targum Onkelos →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/torah/LEV.21.4/)

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**Source.** The Holy Scriptures according to the Masoretic Text, Jewish Publication Society, 1917, from eBible.org: public domain. Sentence `jps:LEV:610` 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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