---
title: Numbers 12:1 (JPS 1917) — And Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woma… · tree and pragmatics
description: And Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman whom he had married; for he had married a Cushite woman. Who acts: Miriam, Moses. Numbers 12:1 in JPS 1917 with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Numbers 12:1 · JPS 1917

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And Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman whom he had married; for he had married a Cushite woman.

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**Who acts:** Miriam, Moses · **What happens:** speak, marry · **To what, where:** Cushite woman · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is Numbers 12:1 · 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 (Miriam, Moses), 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:471
# text = And Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman whom he had married; for he had married a Cushite woman.
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
2	Miriam	Miriam	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
3	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
4	Aaron	Aaron	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	2	conj	_	_
5	spoke	speak	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	against	against	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	Moses	Moses	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
8	because	because	ADP	IN	ExtPos=ADP	12	case	_	_
9	of	of	ADP	IN	_	8	fixed	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
11	Cushite	Cushite	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	12	compound	_	_
12	woman	woman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
13	whom	whom	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	16	obj	_	_
14	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
15	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
16	married	marry	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	12	acl:relcl	_	_
17	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	21	punct	_	_
18	for	for	SCONJ	IN	_	21	mark	_	_
19	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	nsubj	_	_
20	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	21	aux	_	_
21	married	marry	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	5	advcl	_	_
22	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
23	Cushite	Cushite	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	24	compound	_	_
24	woman	woman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	obj	_	_
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	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 | **speak** *speech: other* | past | Miriam and Aaron |  |  |  |  | against Moses; because the Cushite woman | vn talk-37.5 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **marry** | past · perfect | Moses | the Cushite woman |  |  |  |  | vn amalgamate-22.2-3-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent whom=Patient |
| 3 | **marry** | past · perfect | Moses | a Cushite woman |  |  |  |  | vn amalgamate-22.2-3-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent woman=Patient |

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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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וַתְּדַבֵּ֨ר מִרְיָ֤ם וְאַהֲרֹן֙ בְּמֹשֶׁ֔ה עַל־אֹד֛וֹת הָאִשָּׁ֥ה הַכֻּשִׁ֖ית אֲשֶׁ֣ר לָקָ֑ח כִּֽי־אִשָּׁ֥ה כֻשִׁ֖ית לָקָֽח׃

[Numbers 12:1: the Hebrew tree, its pragmatics and Targum Onkelos →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/torah/NUM.12.1/)

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**Source.** The Holy Scriptures according to the Masoretic Text, Jewish Publication Society, 1917, from eBible.org: public domain. Sentence `jps:NUM:471` 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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