Test 5 · The Southern Ocean: blue whales, colossal squid and life u…

What would happen if all the whales in the Southern Ocean disappeared?

Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 4 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: whales · What happens: happen, disappear

This is test 5 of lesson 171 «The Southern Ocean: blue whales, colossal squid and life under the ice» 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	What	what	PRON	PronType=Int	3 happen	nsubj
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 happen	aux
3	happen	happen	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	if	if	SCONJ	_	12 disappeared	mark
5	all	all	DET	PronType=Tot	7 whales	det:predet
6	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	7 whales	det
7	whales	whale	NOUN	Number=Plur	12 disappeared	nsubj
8	in	in	ADP	_	11 Ocean	case
9	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	11 Ocean	det
10	Southern	Southern	PROPN	_	11 Ocean	flat
11	Ocean	Ocean	PROPN	Number=Sing	7 whales	nmod
12	disappeared	disappear	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 happen	advcl
13	?	?	PUNCT	_	3 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
2	disappear a condition, not said to happen	past	all whales in the Southern Ocean						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.

The options

Option 1 · ← Mova's choice

Krill would turn into fish

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Krill	krill	NOUN	Number=Sing	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 fish	case
5	fish	fish	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 turn	obl

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

Option 2

The current round Antarctica would stop

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	2 current	det
2	current	current	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 stop	nsubj
3	round	round	ADP	_	4 Antarctica	case
4	Antarctica	Antarctica	PROPN	Number=Sing	2 current	nmod
5	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	6 stop	aux
6	stop	stop	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	stop	would	the current round Antarctica						vn stop-55.4-1-1 «NP.eventuality V»: agent=Eventuality

Option 3

The sea would freeze solid

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	2 sea	det
2	sea	sea	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 freeze	nsubj
3	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	4 freeze	aux
4	freeze	freeze	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
5	solid	solid	ADJ	Degree=Pos	4 freeze	xcomp

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	freeze	would	the sea					solid property	vn other_cos-45.4-1 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient

Option 4 · ✓ the right answer

Less whale poo would mean less iron for the tiny plants at the bottom of the food chain

The tree, 18 words

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Less	less	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	3 poo	amod
2	whale	whale	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 poo	compound
3	poo	poo	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 mean	nsubj
4	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	5 mean	aux
5	mean	mean	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
6	less	less	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	7 iron	amod
7	iron	iron	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 mean	obj
8	for	for	ADP	_	11 plants	case
9	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	11 plants	det
10	tiny	tiny	ADJ	Degree=Pos	11 plants	amod
11	plants	plant	NOUN	Number=Plur	7 iron	nmod
12	at	at	ADP	_	14 bottom	case
13	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	14 bottom	det
14	bottom	bottom	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 mean	obl
15	of	of	ADP	_	18 chain	case
16	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	18 chain	det
17	food	food	NOUN	Number=Sing	18 chain	compound
18	chain	chain	NOUN	Number=Sing	14 bottom	nmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	mean	would	Less whale poo	less iron		the bottom of the food chain		for the tiny plants	vn representation-110.1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Pivot iron=Theme for plant=Attribute

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/171-the-southern-ocean-blue-whales-colossal-squid-and-life-under-the-ice/t5/