Test 6 · The microscopic world: tardigrades, mites, plankton and ot…

What would happen to the sea if all the plankton vanished?

Mova's choice: option 4 · The right answer: option 2 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: plankton · What happens: happen, vanish

This is test 6 of lesson 259 «The microscopic world: tardigrades, mites, plankton and other tiny creatures» 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	to	to	ADP	_	6 sea	case
5	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	6 sea	det
6	sea	sea	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 happen	obl
7	if	if	SCONJ	_	11 vanished	mark
8	all	all	DET	PronType=Tot	10 plankton	det:predet
9	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	10 plankton	det
10	plankton	plankton	NOUN	Number=Sing	11 vanished	nsubj
11	vanished	vanish	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	3 happen	advcl
12	?	?	PUNCT	_	3 happen	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	happen	would						to the sea	vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
2	vanish a condition, not said to happen	participle	all plankton						vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=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

Whales would start eating land animals

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Whales	whale	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 start	nsubj
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 start	aux
3	start	start	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	eating	eat	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	3 start	xcomp
5	land	land	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 animals	compound
6	animals	animal	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 eating	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	start	would	Whales						vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S_ING»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality
2	eat	gerund	Whales not said here	land animals					vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent animal=Patient

Option 2 · ✓ the right answer

The food web would collapse, from fish to whales

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	3 web	det
2	food	food	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 web	compound
3	web	web	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 collapse	nsubj
4	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	5 collapse	aux
5	collapse	collapse	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
6	,	,	PUNCT	_	8 fish	punct
7	from	from	ADP	_	8 fish	case
8	fish	fish	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 collapse	obl
9	to	to	ADP	_	10 whales	case
10	whales	whale	NOUN	Number=Plur	5 collapse	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	collapse	would	the food web					from fish; to whales	vn other_cos-45.4 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient

Option 3

The sea would get more crowded

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	2 sea	det
2	sea	sea	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 get	nsubj
3	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	4 get	aux
4	get	get	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
5	more	more	ADV	Degree=Cmp	6 crowded	advmod
6	crowded	crowded	ADJ	Degree=Pos	4 get	xcomp

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

Option 4 · ← Mova's choice

Fish would eat more seaweed and be fine

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Fish	fish	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 eat	nsubj
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 eat	aux
3	eat	eat	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	more	more	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	5 seaweed	amod
5	seaweed	seaweed	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 eat	obj
6	and	and	CCONJ	_	8 fine	cc
7	be	be	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	8 fine	cop
8	fine	fine	ADJ	Degree=Pos	3 eat	conj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	eat	would	Fish	more seaweed					vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent seaweed=Patient
2	is	infinitive	Fish not said here					fine 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/259-the-microscopic-world-tardigrades-mites-plankton-and-other-tiny-creatures/t6/