Test 3 · Elephants: the trunk and everything it does

What would happen if an elephant had a short nose like a horse but kept its short neck and heavy head?

Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 3 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: elephant · What happens: happen, have, keep · To what, where: short nose, short neck

This is test 3 of lesson 21 «Elephants: the trunk and everything it does» 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 had	mark
5	an	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	6 elephant	det
6	elephant	elephant	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 had	nsubj
7	had	have	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 happen	advcl
8	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	10 nose	det
9	short	short	ADJ	Degree=Pos	10 nose	amod
10	nose	nose	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 had	obj
11	like	like	ADP	_	13 horse	case
12	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	13 horse	det
13	horse	horse	NOUN	Number=Sing	10 nose	nmod
14	but	but	CCONJ	_	15 kept	cc
15	kept	keep	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	7 had	conj
16	its	its	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	18 neck	nmod:poss
17	short	short	ADJ	Degree=Pos	18 neck	amod
18	neck	neck	NOUN	Number=Sing	15 kept	obj
19	and	and	CCONJ	_	21 head	cc
20	heavy	heavy	ADJ	Degree=Pos	21 head	amod
21	head	head	NOUN	Number=Sing	18 neck	conj
22	?	?	PUNCT	_	3 happen	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	other	roles by
1	happen	would				vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
2	have a condition, not said to happen	past	a elephant	a short nose	like a horse	vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent nose=Patient
3	keep	past	a elephant not said here	elephant's short neck and heavy head		vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent neck=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

It would eat more easily than before

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 eat	nsubj
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 eat	aux
3	eat	eat	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	more	more	ADV	Degree=Cmp	5 easily	advmod
5	easily	easily	ADV	_	3 eat	advmod
6	than	than	ADP	_	7 before	case
7	before	before	ADV	_	3 eat	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	eat	would	It					easily property	vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent

Option 2

It would grow a longer tail to help

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 grow	nsubj
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 grow	aux
3	grow	grow	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	6 tail	det
5	longer	long	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	6 tail	amod
6	tail	tail	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 grow	obj
7	to	to	PART	_	8 help	mark
8	help	help	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	3 grow	advcl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	grow	would	It	a longer tail					vn appear-48.1.1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location tail=Theme
2	help	to-infinitive							vn help-72.1-1-1 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent

Option 3 · ✓ the right answer

It would struggle to reach food and water on the ground

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 struggle	nsubj
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 struggle	aux
3	struggle	struggle	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	to	to	PART	_	5 reach	mark
5	reach	reach	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	3 struggle	xcomp
6	food	food	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 reach	obj
7	and	and	CCONJ	_	8 water	cc
8	water	water	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 food	conj
9	on	on	ADP	_	11 ground	case
10	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	11 ground	det
11	ground	ground	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 reach	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	struggle	would	It						tree rules
2	reach	to-infinitive		food and water		the ground			vn body_motion-49.2-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: agent=Agent food=Theme

Option 4

Nothing, the trunk is only for smelling

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Nothing	nothing	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Neg	8 smelling	nsubj
2	,	,	PUNCT	_	4 trunk	punct
3	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	4 trunk	det
4	trunk	trunk	NOUN	Number=Sing	1 Nothing	conj
5	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	8 smelling	cop
6	only	only	ADV	_	8 smelling	advmod
7	for	for	ADP	_	8 smelling	case
8	smelling	smell	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	root	root

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is	present	Nothing					smell property	tree rules

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/21-elephants-the-trunk/t3/