Test 8 · ★★ · Record-breakers: the loudest and the longest-lived

What would happen if a farmer counted the rings on a bristlecone stump?

Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 1 · right ✓ · Who acts: farmer · What happens: happen, count · To what, where: rings, bristlecone stump

This is test 8 · ★★ of lesson 187 «Record-breakers: the loudest and the longest-lived» 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	_	7 counted	mark
5	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	6 farmer	det
6	farmer	farmer	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 counted	nsubj
7	counted	count	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	3 happen	advcl
8	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	9 rings	det
9	rings	ring	NOUN	Number=Plur	7 counted	obj
10	on	on	ADP	_	13 stump	case
11	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	13 stump	det
12	bristlecone	bristlecone	NOUN	Number=Sing	13 stump	compound
13	stump	stump	NOUN	Number=Sing	9 rings	nmod
14	?	?	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	count a condition, not said to happen	participle	a farmer	the rings		a bristlecone stump			vn multiply-108 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent ring=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 · ✓ the right answer

He could tell roughly how many years it grew

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	He	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	3 tell	nsubj
2	could	could	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 tell	aux
3	tell	tell	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	roughly	roughly	ADV	_	3 tell	advmod
5	how	how	ADV	PronType=Int	6 many	advmod
6	many	many	ADJ	Degree=Pos	7 years	amod
7	years	year	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 tell	obl:unmarked
8	it	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	9 grew	nsubj
9	grew	grow	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 tell	ccomp

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	tell speech: assert	could	He				year	roughly property	vn transfer_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic
2	grow	past	it						vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme

Option 2

Nothing, trees have no rings

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Nothing	nothing	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Neg	4 have	obj
2	,	,	PUNCT	_	1 Nothing	punct
3	trees	tree	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 have	nsubj
4	have	have	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
5	no	no	DET	PronType=Neg	6 rings	det
6	rings	ring	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 have	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	have	present	trees	Nothing					tree rules

Option 3

He would learn how tall it was when it was cut

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	He	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	3 learn	nsubj
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 learn	aux
3	learn	learn	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	how	how	ADV	PronType=Int	5 tall	advmod
5	tall	tall	ADJ	Degree=Pos	3 learn	ccomp
6	it	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	5 tall	nsubj
7	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	5 tall	cop
8	when	when	ADV	PronType=Int	11 cut	advmod
9	it	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	11 cut	nsubj:pass
10	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	11 cut	aux:pass
11	cut	cut	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	3 learn	advcl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	other	roles by
1	learn	would	He			vn learn-14-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent
2	is	past	it		tall property	tree rules
3	cut	past · passive		it		vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: subject=Product

Option 4

He would learn its colour

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	He	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	3 learn	nsubj
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 learn	aux
3	learn	learn	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	its	its	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	5 colour	nmod:poss
5	colour	colour	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 learn	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	learn	would	He	its colour					vn learn-14-2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent colour=Topic

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/187-record-breakers-the-loudest-and-the-longest-lived/t8/