Test 8 · ★★ · Myth check: are elephants scared of mice?
A mouse crawls into a sleeping elephant's trunk in a cartoon and the elephant goes mad. What would really happen?
Mova's choice: option 2 · The right answer: option 3 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: mouse, elephant · What happens: crawl, go, happen · To what, where: trunk
This is test 8 · ★★ of lesson 149 «Myth check: are elephants scared of mice?» 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
Sentence 1: A mouse crawls into a sleeping elephant's trunk in a cartoon and the elephant goes mad.
The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)
| # | word | lemma | UPOS | features | head | relation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | A | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 2 mouse | det |
| 2 | mouse | mouse | NOUN | Number=Sing | 3 crawls | nsubj |
| 3 | crawls | crawl | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 4 | into | into | ADP | _ | 9 trunk | case |
| 5 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 7 elephant | det |
| 6 | sleeping | sleeping | NOUN | Number=Sing | 7 elephant | compound |
| 7 | elephant | elephant | NOUN | Number=Sing | 9 trunk | nmod:poss |
| 8 | 's | 's | PART | _ | 7 elephant | case |
| 9 | trunk | trunk | NOUN | Number=Sing | 3 crawls | obl |
| 10 | in | in | ADP | _ | 12 cartoon | case |
| 11 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 12 cartoon | det |
| 12 | cartoon | cartoon | NOUN | Number=Sing | 3 crawls | obl |
| 13 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 16 goes | cc |
| 14 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 15 elephant | det |
| 15 | elephant | elephant | NOUN | Number=Sing | 16 goes | nsubj |
| 16 | goes | go | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 3 crawls | conj |
| 17 | mad | mad | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 16 goes | xcomp |
| 18 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 3 crawls | punct |
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | crawl | present | a mouse | a sleeping elephant's trunk | in a cartoon | vn run-51.3.2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme into trunk=Destination | |||
| 2 | go | present | the elephant | mad property | vn disappearance-48.2-1 «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.
Sentence 2: What would really happen?
The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)
| # | word | lemma | UPOS | features | head | relation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | What | what | PRON | PronType=Int | 4 happen | nsubj |
| 2 | would | would | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 4 happen | aux |
| 3 | really | really | ADV | _ | 4 happen | advmod |
| 4 | happen | happen | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | root | root |
| 5 | ? | ? | PUNCT | _ | 4 happen | punct |
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | happen | would | vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
The options
Option 1
The elephant could never breathe through its trunk again
The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)
| # | word | lemma | UPOS | features | head | relation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 2 elephant | det |
| 2 | elephant | elephant | NOUN | Number=Sing | 5 breathe | nsubj |
| 3 | could | could | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 5 breathe | aux |
| 4 | never | never | ADV | PronType=Neg | 5 breathe | advmod |
| 5 | breathe | breathe | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | root | root |
| 6 | through | through | ADP | _ | 8 trunk | case |
| 7 | its | its | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 8 trunk | nmod:poss |
| 8 | trunk | trunk | NOUN | Number=Sing | 5 breathe | obl |
| 9 | again | again | ADV | _ | 5 breathe | advmod |
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | not breathe | could | the elephant | elephant's trunk | again | vn breathe-40.1.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
Option 2 · ← Mova's choice
The mouse would live happily in the trunk for years
The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)
| # | word | lemma | UPOS | features | head | relation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 2 mouse | det |
| 2 | mouse | mouse | NOUN | Number=Sing | 4 live | nsubj |
| 3 | would | would | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 4 live | aux |
| 4 | live | live | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | root | root |
| 5 | happily | happily | ADV | _ | 4 live | advmod |
| 6 | in | in | ADP | _ | 8 trunk | case |
| 7 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 8 trunk | det |
| 8 | trunk | trunk | NOUN | Number=Sing | 4 live | obl |
| 9 | for | for | ADP | _ | 10 years | case |
| 10 | years | year | NOUN | Number=Plur | 4 live | obl |
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | live | would | the mouse | the trunk | year | happily property | vn lodge-46 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in trunk=Location |
Option 3 · ✓ the right answer
The elephant would blow it out with one huge snort
The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)
| # | word | lemma | UPOS | features | head | relation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 2 elephant | det |
| 2 | elephant | elephant | NOUN | Number=Sing | 4 blow | nsubj |
| 3 | would | would | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 4 blow | aux |
| 4 | blow | blow | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | root | root |
| 5 | it | it | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 4 blow | obj |
| 6 | out | out | ADP | _ | 4 blow | compound:prt |
| 7 | with | with | ADP | _ | 10 snort | case |
| 8 | one | one | NUM | NumForm=Word NumType=Card | 10 snort | nummod |
| 9 | huge | huge | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 10 snort | amod |
| 10 | snort | snort | NOUN | Number=Sing | 4 blow | obl |
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | blow out | would | the elephant | it | with one huge snort | vn split-23.2 «NP V NP apart»: agent=Agent it=Patient |
Option 4
The mouse would climb up the trunk into the elephant's head and stay there
The tree, 15 words
The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)
| # | word | lemma | UPOS | features | head | relation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 2 mouse | det |
| 2 | mouse | mouse | NOUN | Number=Sing | 4 climb | nsubj |
| 3 | would | would | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 4 climb | aux |
| 4 | climb | climb | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | root | root |
| 5 | up | up | ADP | _ | 4 climb | compound:prt |
| 6 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 7 trunk | det |
| 7 | trunk | trunk | NOUN | Number=Sing | 4 climb | obj |
| 8 | into | into | ADP | _ | 12 head | case |
| 9 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 10 elephant | det |
| 10 | elephant | elephant | NOUN | Number=Sing | 12 head | nmod:poss |
| 11 | 's | 's | PART | _ | 10 elephant | case |
| 12 | head | head | NOUN | Number=Sing | 4 climb | obl |
| 13 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 14 stay | cc |
| 14 | stay | stay | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 4 climb | conj |
| 15 | there | there | ADV | PronType=Dem | 14 stay | advmod |
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | climb up | would | the mouse | the trunk | the elephant's head | tree rules | |||
| 2 | stay | infinitive | the mouse not said here | there | vn exist-47.1 «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.
This page in Markdown → https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/questions/biology/149-myth-check-are-elephants-scared-of-mice/t8/