Test 8 · Horses, zebras and donkeys

What would happen if a horse's teeth stopped growing but it kept eating tough grass all its life?

Mova's choice: option 2 · The right answer: option 3 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: teeth, horse · What happens: happen, stop, grow, keep, eat · To what, where: tough grass

This is test 8 of lesson 25 «Horses, zebras and donkeys» 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	_	9 stopped	mark
5	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	6 horse	det
6	horse	horse	NOUN	Number=Sing	8 teeth	nmod:poss
7	's	's	PART	_	6 horse	case
8	teeth	tooth	NOUN	Number=Plur	9 stopped	nsubj
9	stopped	stop	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 happen	advcl
10	growing	grow	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	9 stopped	xcomp
11	but	but	CCONJ	_	13 kept	cc
12	it	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	13 kept	nsubj
13	kept	keep	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	9 stopped	conj
14	eating	eat	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	13 kept	xcomp
15	tough	tough	ADJ	Degree=Pos	16 grass	amod
16	grass	grass	NOUN	Number=Sing	14 eating	obj
17	all	all	DET	PronType=Tot	19 life	det:predet
18	its	its	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	19 life	nmod:poss
19	life	life	NOUN	Number=Sing	14 eating	obl:unmarked
20	?	?	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	stop a condition, not said to happen	past	a horse's teeth			vn stop-55.4-1-1 «NP V S_ING»: agent=Affector clause=Eventuality
3	grow	gerund	a horse's teeth not said here			vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
4	keep	past	horse			tree rules
5	eat	gerund	horse not said here	tough grass	horse's life obl:unmarked	vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent grass=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, teeth never wear down

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Nothing	nothing	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Neg	3 teeth	compound
2	,	,	PUNCT	_	1 Nothing	punct
3	teeth	tooth	NOUN	Number=Plur	5 wear	nsubj
4	never	never	ADV	PronType=Neg	5 wear	advmod
5	wear	wear	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
6	down	down	ADP	_	5 wear	compound:prt

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	not wear down	present	Nothing teeth						vn wipe_manner-10.4.1-1 «NP V PP-Conative»: agent=Agent

Option 2 · ← Mova's choice

They would get sharper every year

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 get	nsubj
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 get	aux
3	get	get	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	sharper	sharp	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	3 get	xcomp
5	every	every	DET	PronType=Tot	6 year	det
6	year	year	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 get	obl:unmarked

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	get	would	They				year	sharp property	vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V S_ING»: agent=Experiencer

Option 3 · ✓ the right answer

They would wear down until it could hardly chew

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 wear	nsubj
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 wear	aux
3	wear	wear	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	down	down	ADP	_	3 wear	compound:prt
5	until	until	SCONJ	_	9 chew	mark
6	it	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	9 chew	nsubj
7	could	could	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	9 chew	aux
8	hardly	hardly	ADV	_	9 chew	advmod
9	chew	chew	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	3 wear	advcl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	wear down	would	They						vn wipe_manner-10.4.1-1 «NP V PP-Conative»: agent=Agent
2	chew	could	it					hardly property	vn chew-39.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent

Option 4

It would grow a whole new set of teeth every spring

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	7 set	det
5	whole	whole	ADJ	Degree=Pos	7 set	amod
6	new	new	ADJ	Degree=Pos	7 set	amod
7	set	set	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 grow	obj
8	of	of	ADP	_	9 teeth	case
9	teeth	tooth	NOUN	Number=Plur	7 set	nmod
10	every	every	DET	PronType=Tot	11 spring	det
11	spring	spring	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 grow	obl:unmarked

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	grow	would	It	a whole new set of teeth			spring		vn appear-48.1.1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location set=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/25-horses-zebras-and-donkeys/t8/