Test 7 · The polar zone: arctic foxes, snowy owls, lemmings and rei…

What would happen to snowy owls in a year with very few lemmings?

Mova's choice: option 2 · The right answer: option 2 · right ✓ · What happens: happen

This is test 7 of lesson 106 «The polar zone: arctic foxes, snowy owls, lemmings and reindeer» of the biology course of Mova's primary school. The page gives the question's syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause, then the 4 options as the student saw them, each with its tree and pragmatics. Every text is parsed by Mova itself. How the student answered it, with the score of every option and why: the test at school.

The question

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	What	what	PRON	PronType=Int	3 happen	nsubj
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 happen	aux
3	happen	happen	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	to	to	ADP	_	6 owls	case
5	snowy	snowy	ADJ	Degree=Pos	6 owls	amod
6	owls	owl	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 happen	obl
7	in	in	ADP	_	9 year	case
8	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	9 year	det
9	year	year	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 happen	obl
10	with	with	ADP	_	13 lemmings	case
11	very	very	ADV	_	12 few	advmod
12	few	few	ADJ	Degree=Pos	13 lemmings	amod
13	lemmings	lemming	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 happen	obl
14	?	?	PUNCT	_	3 happen	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	happen	would					year	to snowy owls; with few lemmings	vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme

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 options

Option 1

Nothing, they only eat Arctic fish

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Nothing	nothing	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Neg	5 eat	obl:unmarked
2	,	,	PUNCT	_	1 Nothing	punct
3	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	5 eat	nsubj
4	only	only	ADV	_	5 eat	advmod
5	eat	eat	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
6	Arctic	arctic	ADJ	Degree=Pos	7 fish	amod
7	fish	fish	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 eat	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	eat	present	they	Nothing					vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent fish=Patient

Option 2 · ← Mova's choice · ✓ the right answer

They would raise fewer chicks

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	They	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	3 raise	nsubj
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 raise	aux
3	raise	raise	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	fewer	few	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	5 chicks	amod
5	chicks	chick	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 raise	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	raise	would	They	fewer chicks					vn put_direction-9.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent chick=Theme

Option 3

They would turn brown to hide better

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	They	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	3 turn	nsubj
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 turn	aux
3	turn	turn	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	brown	brown	ADJ	Degree=Pos	3 turn	xcomp
5	to	to	PART	_	6 hide	mark
6	hide	hide	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	3 turn	advcl
7	better	well	ADV	Degree=Cmp	6 hide	advmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	turn	would	They					brown property	vn roll-51.3.1 «NP.theme V»: agent=Theme
2	hide	to-infinitive	They not said here					well property	vn concealment-16-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent

Option 4

They would raise more chicks than ever

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	They	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	3 raise	nsubj
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 raise	aux
3	raise	raise	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	more	more	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	5 chicks	amod
5	chicks	chick	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 raise	obj
6	than	than	ADP	_	7 ever	case
7	ever	ever	ADV	PronType=Ind	3 raise	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	raise	would	They	more chicks					vn put_direction-9.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent chick=Theme

Text: the tests of Mova's primary school, written for Mova (world/data/school/), as the course runner gave them to the student. Trees: Mova's own parse — the en model on the CPU, when the site is built — not checked by a teacher; they may be wrong. Frames: Mova's frames reader (prag), each text read on its own. Elamur Cosmic License.

This page in Markdown → https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/questions/biology/106-the-polar-zone-arctic-foxes-snowy-owls-lemmings-reindeer/t7/