Exam question 4 · The South American area: sloths, anteaters, piranhas and g…

State the period during which giant ground sloths inhabited the Americas, relative to the extinction of the dinosaurs.

Mova's choice: option 2 · The right answer: option 2 · right ✓ · Who acts: giant ground sloths · What happens: inhabit, extinguish · To what, where: State period, dinosaurs

This is exam question 4 of lesson 108 «The South American area: sloths, anteaters, piranhas and giant otters» of the biology course of Mova's primary school, asked in stiff, formal language. 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	State	state	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 period	compound
2	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	3 period	det
3	period	period	NOUN	Number=Sing	9 inhabited	obl:unmarked
4	during	during	ADP	_	5 which	case
5	which	which	PRON	PronType=Rel	9 inhabited	obl
6	giant	giant	ADJ	Degree=Pos	8 sloths	amod
7	ground	ground	NOUN	Number=Sing	8 sloths	compound
8	sloths	sloth	NOUN	Number=Plur	9 inhabited	nsubj
9	inhabited	inhabit	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
10	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	11 Americas	det
11	Americas	AMERICAS	PROPN	Number=Plur	9 inhabited	obj
12	,	,	PUNCT	_	13 relative	punct
13	relative	relative	NOUN	Number=Sing	11 Americas	appos
14	to	to	ADP	_	16 extinction	case
15	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	16 extinction	det
16	extinction	extinction	NOUN	Number=Sing	13 relative	nmod
17	of	of	ADP	_	19 dinosaurs	case
18	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	19 dinosaurs	det
19	dinosaurs	dinosaur	NOUN	Number=Plur	16 extinction	nmod
20	.	.	PUNCT	_	9 inhabited	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	inhabit	past	giant ground sloths	the State period					tree rules
2	extinguish			the dinosaurs					nom extinction «state transitive»: of=patient

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

They inhabit the Americas at the present day

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	2 inhabit	nsubj
2	inhabit	inhabit	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	4 Americas	det
4	Americas	AMERICAS	PROPN	Number=Plur	2 inhabit	obj
5	at	at	ADP	_	8 day	case
6	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	8 day	det
7	present	present	ADJ	Degree=Pos	8 day	amod
8	day	day	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 inhabit	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	inhabit	present	They	the Americas			day		tree rules

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

Until about ten thousand years ago, long after the dinosaurs had died out

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Until	until	ADP	_	5 years	case
2	about	about	ADV	_	4 thousand	advmod
3	ten	ten	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	4 thousand	compound
4	thousand	thousand	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	5 years	nummod
5	years	year	NOUN	Number=Plur	6 ago	obl:unmarked
6	ago	ago	ADV	_	13 died	advmod
7	,	,	PUNCT	_	13 died	punct
8	long	long	ADV	Degree=Pos	13 died	advmod
9	after	after	SCONJ	_	13 died	mark
10	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	11 dinosaurs	det
11	dinosaurs	dinosaur	NOUN	Number=Plur	13 died	nsubj
12	had	have	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	13 died	aux
13	died	die	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part	root	root
14	out	out	ADP	_	13 died	compound:prt

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	die out	past · perfect	the dinosaurs					ago, long property	vn calibratable_cos-45.6.1 «NP.attribute V»: agent=Attribute

Option 3

At the same time as the dinosaurs, and no later

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	At	at	ADP	_	4 time	case
2	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	4 time	det
3	same	same	ADJ	Degree=Pos	4 time	amod
4	time	time	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root
5	as	as	ADP	_	7 dinosaurs	case
6	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	7 dinosaurs	det
7	dinosaurs	dinosaur	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 time	nmod
8	,	,	PUNCT	_	4 time	punct
9	and	and	CCONJ	_	10 no	cc
10	no	no	ADV	_	11 later	advmod
11	later	late	ADV	Degree=Cmp	4 time	advmod

The frames reader finds no event or fact in this sentence.

Option 4

Before the dinosaurs had appeared

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Before	before	SCONJ	_	5 appeared	mark
2	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	3 dinosaurs	det
3	dinosaurs	dinosaur	NOUN	Number=Plur	5 appeared	nsubj
4	had	have	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	5 appeared	aux
5	appeared	appear	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part	root	root

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	appear	past · perfect	the dinosaurs						vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=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.

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