Test 11 · How scientists find out: naturalists, Darwin, the microsco…

What would happen if thousands of children counted garden birds every year?

Mova's choice: option 3 · The right answer: option 3 · right ✓ · What happens: happen, count · To what, where: thousands

This is test 11 of lesson 264 «How scientists find out: naturalists, Darwin, the microscope and wildlife filming» 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	_	8 counted	mark
5	thousands	thousand	NOUN	Number=Plur	8 counted	nsubj:pass
6	of	of	ADP	_	7 children	case
7	children	child	NOUN	Number=Plur	5 thousands	nmod
8	counted	count	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	10 birds	amod
9	garden	garden	NOUN	Number=Sing	10 birds	compound
10	birds	bird	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 happen	conj
11	every	every	DET	PronType=Tot	12 year	det
12	year	year	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 happen	obl:unmarked
13	?	?	PUNCT	_	3 happen	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	happen	would					year		vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
2	count a condition, not said to happen	participle · passive		thousands of children					vn multiply-108 «NP V NP»: subject=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

The birds would leave the gardens

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	2 birds	det
2	birds	bird	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 leave	nsubj
3	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	4 leave	aux
4	leave	leave	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
5	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	6 gardens	det
6	gardens	garden	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 leave	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	leave	would	the birds	the gardens					vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent garden=Theme

Option 2

The counts would be useless because children made them

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	2 counts	det
2	counts	count	NOUN	Number=Plur	5 useless	nsubj
3	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	5 useless	aux
4	be	be	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	5 useless	cop
5	useless	useless	ADJ	Degree=Pos	root	root
6	because	because	SCONJ	_	8 made	mark
7	children	child	NOUN	Number=Plur	8 made	nsubj
8	made	make	VERB	Mood=Ind Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	5 useless	advcl
9	them	they	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	8 made	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is	would	the counts					useless property	tree rules
2	make	past	children	counts = count					vn build-26.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent they=Product

Option 3 · ← Mova's choice · ✓ the right answer

Scientists could see how bird numbers change over time

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Scientists	scientist	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 see	nsubj
2	could	could	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 see	aux
3	see	see	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	how	how	ADV	PronType=Int	7 change	advmod
5	bird	bird	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 numbers	compound
6	numbers	number	NOUN	Number=Plur	7 change	nsubj
7	change	change	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	3 see	ccomp
8	over	over	ADP	_	9 time	case
9	time	time	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 change	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	see	could	Scientists						vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V how S_INF»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus
2	change	present	bird numbers				time		vn dress-41.1.1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent

Option 4

Every count would be exactly the same

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Every	every	DET	PronType=Tot	2 count	det
2	count	count	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 same	nsubj
3	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	7 same	aux
4	be	be	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	7 same	cop
5	exactly	exactly	ADV	_	7 same	advmod
6	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	7 same	det
7	same	same	ADJ	Degree=Pos	root	root

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is	would	every count					exactly, same 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/264-how-scientists-find-out-naturalists-darwin-the-microscope-and-wildlife-filming/t11/