---
title: Numbers 8:18 (JPS 1917) — And I have taken the Levites instead of all the first-born among the… · tree and pragmatics
description: And I have taken the Levites instead of all the first-born among the children of Israel. Who acts: I. Numbers 8:18 in JPS 1917 with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Numbers 8:18 · JPS 1917

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And I have taken the Levites instead of all the first-born among the children of Israel.

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**Who acts:** I · **What happens:** take · **To what, where:** Levites

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This is Numbers 8:18 · 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 (I), 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:NUM:367
# text = And I have taken the Levites instead of all the first-born among the children of Israel.
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	have	have	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	taken	take	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	Levites	Levite	PROPN	NNPS	Number=Plur	4	obj	_	_
7	instead	instead	ADV	RB	ExtPos=ADP	13	case	_	_
8	of	of	ADP	IN	_	7	fixed	_	_
9	all	all	DET	PDT	PronType=Tot	13	det:predet	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
11	first	first	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos|NumForm=Word|NumType=Ord	13	amod	_	_
12	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	11	punct	_	_
13	born	born	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	_
14	among	among	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	children	child	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	nmod	_	_
17	of	of	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
18	Israel	Israel	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	16	nmod	_	_
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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- form: statement
- act: assert
- 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 | **take** | present · perfect | I |  | the Levites |  |  | instead all first born among the children of Israel | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP ADVP»: agent=Instrument levite=Destination |

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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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וָאֶקַּח֙ אֶת־הַלְוִיִּ֔ם תַּ֥חַת כָּל־בְּכ֖וֹר בִּבְנֵ֥י יִשְׂרָאֵֽל׃

[Numbers 8:18: the Hebrew tree, its pragmatics and Targum Onkelos →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/torah/NUM.8.18/)

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**Source.** The Holy Scriptures according to the Masoretic Text, Jewish Publication Society, 1917, from eBible.org: public domain. Sentence `jps:NUM:367` 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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