Test 6 · Team players and partners: meerkats, naked mole rats, hudd…

What would happen if no meerkat stood guard?

Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 3 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: meerkat · What happens: happen, stand · To what, where: guard

This is test 6 of lesson 241 «Team players and partners: meerkats, naked mole rats, huddles, cleaners (and do lemmings jump?)» 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 stood	mark
5	no	no	DET	PronType=Neg	6 meerkat	det
6	meerkat	meerkat	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 stood	nsubj
7	stood	stand	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 happen	advcl
8	guard	guard	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 stood	obj
9	?	?	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	stand a condition, not said to happen	past	no meerkat	guard					vn admire-31.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer guard=Stimulus

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 scorpions would protect them

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	2 scorpions	det
2	scorpions	scorpion	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 protect	nsubj
3	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	4 protect	aux
4	protect	protect	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
5	them	they	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	4 protect	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	protect	would	the scorpions	them = they					vn defend-72.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent they=Beneficiary

Option 2

They would dig faster without stopping and be quite safe

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 dig	nsubj
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 dig	aux
3	dig	dig	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	faster	fast	ADV	Degree=Cmp	3 dig	advmod
5	without	without	SCONJ	_	6 stopping	mark
6	stopping	stop	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	3 dig	advcl
7	and	and	CCONJ	_	10 safe	cc
8	be	be	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	10 safe	cop
9	quite	quite	ADV	_	10 safe	advmod
10	safe	safe	ADJ	Degree=Pos	3 dig	conj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	other	roles by
1	dig	would	They	fast property	vn create-26.4-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent
2	stop	gerund	They not said here		vn stop-55.4-1-1 «NP.eventuality V»: agent=Eventuality
3	is	infinitive	They not said here	safe property	tree rules

Option 3 · ✓ the right answer

An eagle could catch them while they dig with heads down

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	An	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	2 eagle	det
2	eagle	eagle	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 catch	nsubj
3	could	could	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	4 catch	aux
4	catch	catch	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
5	them	they	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	4 catch	obj
6	while	while	SCONJ	_	8 dig	mark
7	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	8 dig	nsubj
8	dig	dig	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	4 catch	advcl
9	with	with	ADP	_	10 heads	case
10	heads	head	NOUN	Number=Plur	8 dig	obl
11	down	down	ADV	_	8 dig	advmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	catch	could	a eagle	them = they					vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent they=Theme
2	dig down	present	they					with heads; down property	vn poke-19-1-1-1 «NP V PP.theme PP.instrument»: agent=Agent with head=Instrument

Option 4

Nothing, because eagles and jackals never hunt meerkats at all

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Nothing	nothing	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Neg	root	root
2	,	,	PUNCT	_	8 hunt	punct
3	because	because	SCONJ	_	8 hunt	mark
4	eagles	eagle	NOUN	Number=Plur	8 hunt	nsubj
5	and	and	CCONJ	_	6 jackals	cc
6	jackals	jackal	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 eagles	conj
7	never	never	ADV	PronType=Neg	8 hunt	advmod
8	hunt	hunt	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	1 Nothing	acl:relcl
9	meerkats	meerkat	NOUN	Number=Plur	8 hunt	obj
10	at	at	ADP	_	11 all	case
11	all	all	DET	PronType=Tot	8 hunt	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	not hunt	present	eagles and jackals	meerkats		all			vn hunt-35.1 «NP V NP PP.location»: agent=Agent meerkat=Theme at all=Location

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/241-team-players-and-partners-meerkats-naked-mole-rats-huddles-cleaners-and-lemmings/t6/