Test 8 · ★★ · Ducks, geese and farm myths

What would happen if a duck's oil gland stopped working?

Mova's choice: option 3 · The right answer: option 2 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: oil gland · What happens: happen, work

This is test 8 · ★★ of lesson 213 «Ducks, geese and farm myths» 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	_	11 working	mark
5	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	6 duck	det
6	duck	duck	NOUN	Number=Sing	9 gland	nmod:poss
7	's	's	PART	_	6 duck	case
8	oil	oil	NOUN	Number=Sing	9 gland	compound
9	gland	gland	NOUN	Number=Sing	11 working	nsubj
10	stopped	stop	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	11 working	aux
11	working	work	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	3 happen	advcl
12	?	?	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	work a condition, not said to happen	past	a duck's oil gland						vn employment-95.3 «NP V»: agent=Agent

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

It would turn into a goose

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 turn	nsubj
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 turn	aux
3	turn	turn	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	into	into	ADP	_	6 goose	case
5	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	6 goose	det
6	goose	goose	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 turn	obl

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

Option 2 · ✓ the right answer

Its feathers would soak up water and it could get cold and heavy

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Its	its	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	2 feathers	nmod:poss
2	feathers	feather	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 soak	nsubj
3	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	4 soak	aux
4	soak	soak	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
5	up	up	ADP	_	4 soak	compound:prt
6	water	water	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 soak	obj
7	and	and	CCONJ	_	10 get	cc
8	it	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	10 get	nsubj
9	could	could	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	10 get	aux
10	get	get	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	4 soak	conj
11	cold	cold	ADJ	Degree=Pos	10 get	xcomp
12	and	and	CCONJ	_	13 heavy	cc
13	heavy	heavy	ADJ	Degree=Pos	11 cold	conj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	soak up	would	Its feathers	water					vn wipe_manner-10.4.1 «NP V NP.source»: agent=Agent water=Source
2	get	could	water					cold property	vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V S_ING»: agent=Experiencer

Option 3 · ← Mova's choice

Nothing at all would happen, because ducks do not need oil to stay dry and warm

The tree, 16 words

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Nothing	nothing	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Neg	5 happen	nsubj
2	at	at	ADP	_	3 all	case
3	all	all	DET	PronType=Tot	1 Nothing	nmod
4	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	5 happen	aux
5	happen	happen	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
6	,	,	PUNCT	_	11 need	punct
7	because	because	SCONJ	_	11 need	mark
8	ducks	duck	NOUN	Number=Plur	11 need	nsubj
9	do	do	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	11 need	aux
10	not	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	11 need	advmod
11	need	need	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	5 happen	conj
12	oil	oil	NOUN	Number=Sing	11 need	obj
13	to	to	PART	_	14 stay	mark
14	stay	stay	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	11 need	xcomp
15	dry	dry	ADJ	Degree=Pos	14 stay	xcomp
16	and	and	CCONJ	_	17 warm	cc
17	warm	warm	ADJ	Degree=Pos	15 dry	conj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	other	roles by
1	happen	would	Nothing			vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
2	not need	present · do-support	ducks	oil		tree rules
3	stay not said to happen	to-infinitive	oil not said here		dry property	vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme

Option 4

It would swim faster

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 swim	nsubj
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 swim	aux
3	swim	swim	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	faster	fast	ADV	Degree=Cmp	3 swim	advmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	swim	would	It					fast property	vn run-51.3.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme

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/213-ducks-geese-and-farm-myths/t8/