Test 9 · Ice Age: real sabre-tooths, ground sloths, glyptodonts and…

If the ice sheets of the Ice Age melted back into the sea, what would happen to the land bridge between Asia and America?

Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 2 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: ice sheets, sea · What happens: melt back, happen · To what, where: sea

This is test 9 of lesson 131 «Ice Age: real sabre-tooths, ground sloths, glyptodonts and dodos» 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	If	if	SCONJ	_	9 melted	mark
2	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	4 sheets	det
3	ice	ice	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 sheets	compound
4	sheets	sheet	NOUN	Number=Plur	9 melted	nsubj
5	of	of	ADP	_	8 Age	case
6	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	8 Age	det
7	Ice	Ice	PROPN	Number=Sing	8 Age	compound
8	Age	Age	PROPN	Number=Sing	4 sheets	nmod
9	melted	melt	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
10	back	back	ADV	_	9 melted	advmod
11	into	into	ADP	_	13 sea	case
12	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	13 sea	det
13	sea	sea	NOUN	Number=Sing	9 melted	obl
14	,	,	PUNCT	_	17 happen	punct
15	what	what	PRON	PronType=Int	17 happen	nsubj
16	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	17 happen	aux
17	happen	happen	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	13 sea	acl:relcl
18	to	to	ADP	_	21 bridge	case
19	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	21 bridge	det
20	land	land	NOUN	Number=Sing	21 bridge	compound
21	bridge	bridge	NOUN	Number=Sing	17 happen	obl
22	between	between	ADP	_	23 Asia	case
23	Asia	Asia	PROPN	Number=Sing	21 bridge	nmod
24	and	and	CCONJ	_	25 America	cc
25	America	America	PROPN	Number=Sing	23 Asia	conj
26	?	?	PUNCT	_	9 melted	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	melt back	past	the ice sheets of the Ice Age			the sea			vn knead-26.5 «NP.material V PP.product»: agent=Material into sea=Product
2	happen	would	the sea					to the land bridge between Asia and America	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 · ← Mova's choice

It would get wider

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	It	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	3 get	nsubj
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 get	aux
3	get	get	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	wider	wide	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	3 get	xcomp

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	get	would	It					wide property	vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V S_ING»: agent=Experiencer

Option 2 · ✓ the right answer

It would go under the sea

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	It	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	3 go	nsubj
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 go	aux
3	go	go	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	under	under	ADP	_	6 sea	case
5	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	6 sea	det
6	sea	sea	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 go	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	go	would	It			the sea			vn occur-48.3-2 «NP V PP»: agent=Theme under sea=Location

Option 3

Nothing would change

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Nothing	nothing	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Neg	3 change	nsubj
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 change	aux
3	change	change	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	change	would	Nothing						vn dress-41.1.1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent

Option 4

It would turn into ice

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	It	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing 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	into	into	ADP	_	5 ice	case
5	ice	ice	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 turn	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	turn	would	It			ice			vn roll-51.3.1 «NP V PP.trajectory»: agent=Theme into ice=Trajectory

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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