Test 10 · ★ · Myth check: do goldfish have a three-second memory?

«stupid fish's staring at nothing again» Why might the goldfish be looking at «nothing»?

Mova's choice: option 2 · The right answer: option 4 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: stupid fish, goldfish · What happens: stare, look

This is test 10 · ★ of lesson 152 «Myth check: do goldfish have a three-second memory?» 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	«	«	PUNCT	_	5 staring	punct
2	stupid	stupid	ADJ	Degree=Pos	3 fish	amod
3	fish	fish	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 staring	nsubj
4	's	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	5 staring	aux
5	staring	stare	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	root	root
6	at	at	ADP	_	7 nothing	case
7	nothing	nothing	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Neg	5 staring	obl
8	again	again	ADV	_	5 staring	advmod
9	»	»	PUNCT	_	5 staring	punct
10	Why	why	ADV	PronType=Int	15 looking	advmod
11	might	might	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	15 looking	aux
12	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	13 goldfish	det
13	goldfish	goldfish	NOUN	Number=Sing	15 looking	nsubj
14	be	be	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	15 looking	aux
15	looking	look	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	5 staring	conj
16	at	at	ADP	_	18 nothing	case
17	«	«	PUNCT	_	18 nothing	punct
18	nothing	nothing	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Neg	15 looking	obl
19	»	»	PUNCT	_	5 staring	punct
20	?	?	PUNCT	_	5 staring	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	stare in a quote	present · progressive	stupid fish				again	at nothing	vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent at nothing=Theme
2	look	might · progressive	the goldfish					at nothing	vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent at nothing=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

Fish are blind

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Fish	fish	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 blind	nsubj
2	are	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	3 blind	cop
3	blind	blind	ADJ	Degree=Pos	root	root

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is	present	Fish					blind property	tree rules

Option 2 · ← Mova's choice

It has forgotten how to swim and is waiting until it remembers

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 forgotten	nsubj:pass
2	has	have	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	3 forgotten	aux
3	forgotten	forget	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	root	root
4	how	how	ADV	PronType=Int	6 swim	advmod
5	to	to	PART	_	6 swim	mark
6	swim	swim	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	3 forgotten	xcomp
7	and	and	CCONJ	_	9 waiting	cc
8	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	9 waiting	aux
9	waiting	wait	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	3 forgotten	conj
10	until	until	SCONJ	_	12 remembers	mark
11	it	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	12 remembers	nsubj
12	remembers	remember	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	9 waiting	advcl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	roles by
1	forget	present · perfect · passive		It	tree rules
2	not swim	to-infinitive			vn run-51.3.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
3	wait	present · progressive			vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
4	remember	present	it		vn characterize-29.2-1-1 «NP V S_ING»: agent=Agent

Option 3

It is asleep and dreaming

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 asleep	nsubj
2	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	3 asleep	cop
3	asleep	asleep	ADJ	Degree=Pos	root	root
4	and	and	CCONJ	_	5 dreaming	cc
5	dreaming	dream	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	3 asleep	conj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is	present	It					asleep property	tree rules
2	dream	gerund							vn cognize-85 «NP V PP.topic»: agent=Agent

Option 4 · ✓ the right answer

It may be seeing ultraviolet light that we cannot see

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	4 seeing	nsubj
2	may	may	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	4 seeing	aux
3	be	be	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	4 seeing	aux
4	seeing	see	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	root	root
5	ultraviolet	ultraviolet	ADJ	Degree=Pos	6 light	amod
6	light	light	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 seeing	obj
7	that	that	PRON	PronType=Rel	11 see	obj
8	we	we	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=1 PronType=Prs	11 see	nsubj
9	can	can	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	11 see	aux
10	not	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	11 see	advmod
11	see	see	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	6 light	acl:relcl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	see	may · progressive	It	ultraviolet light					vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer light=Stimulus
2	not see	can	we	ultraviolet light					vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer that=Stimulus

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/152-goldfish-memory/t10/