Test 8 · The lion: why people call it «king of the beasts»; prides…

What would happen to cubs if their mother went hunting and they had plain bright coats?

Mova's choice: option 4 · The right answer: option 3 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: mother, cubs · What happens: happen, go, hunt, have · To what, where: plain bright coats

This is test 8 of lesson 18 «The lion: why people call it «king of the beasts»; prides and roars» 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	to	to	ADP	_	5 cubs	case
5	cubs	cub	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 happen	obl
6	if	if	SCONJ	_	9 went	mark
7	their	their	PRON	Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	8 mother	nmod:poss
8	mother	mother	NOUN	Number=Sing	9 went	nsubj
9	went	go	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 happen	advcl
10	hunting	hunt	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	9 went	xcomp
11	and	and	CCONJ	_	13 had	cc
12	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	13 had	nsubj
13	had	have	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	9 went	conj
14	plain	plain	ADJ	Degree=Pos	16 coats	amod
15	bright	bright	ADJ	Degree=Pos	16 coats	amod
16	coats	coat	NOUN	Number=Plur	13 had	obj
17	?	?	PUNCT	_	3 happen	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	other	roles by
1	happen	would			to cubs	vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
2	go a condition, not said to happen	past	cubs's mother			vn say-37.7 «NP V S-Quote»: agent=Agent clause=Topic
3	hunt	gerund	cubs's mother not said here			vn hunt-35.1 «NP V»: agent=Agent
4	have	past	cubs = cub	plain bright coats		vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent coat=Patient

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

Nothing would happen, because colour does not matter to hyenas at all

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Nothing	nothing	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Neg	3 happen	nsubj
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 happen	aux
3	happen	happen	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	,	,	PUNCT	_	9 matter	punct
5	because	because	SCONJ	_	9 matter	mark
6	colour	colour	NOUN	Number=Sing	9 matter	nsubj
7	does	do	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	9 matter	aux
8	not	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	9 matter	advmod
9	matter	matter	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	3 happen	conj
10	to	to	ADP	_	11 hyenas	case
11	hyenas	hyena	NOUN	Number=Plur	9 matter	obl
12	at	at	ADP	_	13 all	case
13	all	all	DET	PronType=Tot	9 matter	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	happen	would	Nothing						vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
2	not matter	present · do-support	colour			all		to hyenas	vn matter-91 «NP V PP.experiencer»: agent=Stimulus to hyena=Experiencer

Option 2

They would be warmer and safer

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	4 warmer	nsubj
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	4 warmer	aux
3	be	be	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	4 warmer	cop
4	warmer	warm	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	root	root
5	and	and	CCONJ	_	6 safer	cc
6	safer	safe	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	4 warmer	conj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is	would	They					warm property	tree rules
2	be		They not said here						tree rules

Option 3 · ✓ the right answer

They would be easier for hyenas and other killers to spot

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	4 easier	nsubj
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	4 easier	aux
3	be	be	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	4 easier	cop
4	easier	easy	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	root	root
5	for	for	ADP	_	6 hyenas	case
6	hyenas	hyena	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 easier	obl
7	and	and	CCONJ	_	9 killers	cc
8	other	other	ADJ	Degree=Pos	9 killers	amod
9	killers	killer	NOUN	Number=Plur	6 hyenas	conj
10	to	to	PART	_	11 spot	mark
11	spot	spot	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	4 easier	advcl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is	would	They					for hyenas and other killers; easy property	tree rules
2	spot	to-infinitive	They not said here						vn weather-57 «It V PP.theme»

Option 4 · ← Mova's choice

They would hunt better

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 hunt	nsubj
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 hunt	aux
3	hunt	hunt	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	better	well	ADV	Degree=Cmp	3 hunt	advmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	hunt	would	They					well property	vn hunt-35.1 «NP V»: agent=Agent

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/18-the-lion-king-of-the-beasts/t8/