Test 11 · Australia's forests and Tasmania: devils, cassowaries, lyr…

Why might keeping healthy devils in a safe group help save the species?

Mova's choice: option 3 · The right answer: option 1 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: healthy devils · What happens: keep, help, save · To what, where: species

This is test 11 of lesson 167 «Australia's forests and Tasmania: devils, cassowaries, lyrebirds and cube-shaped droppings» 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	Why	why	ADV	PronType=Int	3 keeping	advmod
2	might	might	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 keeping	aux
3	keeping	keep	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	root	root
4	healthy	healthy	ADJ	Degree=Pos	5 devils	amod
5	devils	devil	NOUN	Number=Plur	10 help	nsubj
6	in	in	ADP	_	9 group	case
7	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	9 group	det
8	safe	safe	ADJ	Degree=Pos	9 group	amod
9	group	group	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 devils	nmod
10	help	help	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	3 keeping	ccomp
11	save	save	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	10 help	xcomp
12	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	13 species	det
13	species	species	NOUN	Number=Plur	11 save	obj
14	?	?	PUNCT	_	3 keeping	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	roles by
1	keep	might			tree rules
2	help	present	healthy devils in a safe group		vn help-72.1-1-1 «NP V NP S_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Theme
3	save	infinitive	healthy devils in a safe group not said here	the species	vn get-13.5.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent species=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 · ✓ the right answer

The face cancer cannot spread to them there

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	3 cancer	det
2	face	face	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 cancer	compound
3	cancer	cancer	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 spread	nsubj
4	can	can	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	6 spread	aux
5	not	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	6 spread	advmod
6	spread	spread	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
7	to	to	ADP	_	8 them	case
8	them	they	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	6 spread	obl
9	there	there	ADV	PronType=Dem	6 spread	advmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	not spread	can	the face cancer		them = they	there			vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme

Option 2

They can learn to spin there

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 learn	nsubj
2	can	can	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 learn	aux
3	learn	learn	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	to	to	PART	_	5 spin	mark
5	spin	spin	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	3 learn	xcomp
6	there	there	ADV	PronType=Dem	5 spin	advmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	learn	can	They						vn learn-14-2-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic
2	spin	to-infinitive	They not said here			there			vn roll-51.3.1 «NP.theme V»: agent=Theme

Option 3 · ← Mova's choice

They get much bigger and much stronger on the island

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 get	nsubj
2	get	get	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	much	much	ADV	_	4 bigger	advmod
4	bigger	big	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	2 get	xcomp
5	and	and	CCONJ	_	7 stronger	cc
6	much	much	ADV	_	7 stronger	advmod
7	stronger	strong	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	4 bigger	conj
8	on	on	ADP	_	10 island	case
9	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	10 island	det
10	island	island	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 get	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	get	present	They			the island		big property	vn get-13.5.1-1 «NP V NP PP.source»: agent=Agent on island=Source

Option 4

They turn into thylacines there

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 turn	nsubj
2	turn	turn	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	into	into	ADP	_	4 thylacines	case
4	thylacines	thylacine	NOUN	Number=Plur	2 turn	obl
5	there	there	ADV	PronType=Dem	2 turn	advmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	turn	present	They			thylacines; there			vn roll-51.3.1 «NP V PP.trajectory»: agent=Theme into thylacine=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.

This page in Markdown → https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/questions/biology/167-australias-forests-and-tasmania-devils-cassowaries-and-lyrebirds/t11/