Test 10 · Horns, frills, plates and clubs: Triceratops, Stegosaurus,…

How could scientists tell the colour of Borealopelta?

Mova's choice: option 2 · The right answer: option 4 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: scientists · What happens: tell · To what, where: colour · Speech: someone speaks here

This is test 10 of lesson 267 «Horns, frills, plates and clubs: Triceratops, Stegosaurus, Ankylosaurus and the duck-bills» 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	How	how	ADV	PronType=Int	4 tell	advmod
2	could	could	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	4 tell	aux
3	scientists	scientist	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 tell	nsubj
4	tell	tell	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
5	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	6 colour	det
6	colour	colour	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 tell	obj
7	of	of	ADP	_	8 Borealopelta	case
8	Borealopelta	Borealopelta	PROPN	Number=Sing	6 colour	nmod
9	?	?	PUNCT	_	4 tell	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	tell speech: assert	could	scientists	the colour of Borealopelta					vn transfer_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent colour=Recipient

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

From a painting made by people at the time

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	From	from	ADP	_	3 painting	case
2	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	3 painting	det
3	painting	painting	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root
4	made	make	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	3 painting	acl
5	by	by	ADP	_	6 people	case
6	people	people	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 made	obl:agent
7	at	at	ADP	_	9 time	case
8	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	9 time	det
9	time	time	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 made	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	make	participle		a painting not said here			time		vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset

Option 2 · ← Mova's choice

By guessing from the colours in an old cartoon

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	By	by	SCONJ	_	2 guessing	mark
2	guessing	guess	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	root	root
3	from	from	ADP	_	5 colours	case
4	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	5 colours	det
5	colours	colour	NOUN	Number=Plur	2 guessing	obl
6	in	in	ADP	_	9 cartoon	case
7	an	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	9 cartoon	det
8	old	old	ADJ	Degree=Pos	9 cartoon	amod
9	cartoon	cartoon	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 guessing	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	guess	gerund				the colours		in a old cartoon	vn conjecture-29.5-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent

Option 3

From the colour of the rock it was found in

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	From	from	ADP	_	3 colour	case
2	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	3 colour	det
3	colour	colour	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root
4	of	of	ADP	_	6 rock	case
5	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	6 rock	det
6	rock	rock	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 colour	nmod
7	it	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	9 found	nsubj:pass
8	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	9 found	aux:pass
9	found	find	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	3 colour	acl:relcl
10	in	in	ADP	_	9 found	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	find in	past · passive	the colour of the rock not said here	rock					vn discover-84 «NP V NP»: subject=Topic

Option 4 · ✓ the right answer

From tiny traces of colour kept in its fossil skin

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	From	from	ADP	_	3 traces	case
2	tiny	tiny	ADJ	Degree=Pos	3 traces	amod
3	traces	trace	NOUN	Number=Plur	root	root
4	of	of	ADP	_	5 colour	case
5	colour	colour	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 traces	nmod
6	kept	keep	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	3 traces	acl
7	in	in	ADP	_	10 skin	case
8	its	its	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	10 skin	nmod:poss
9	fossil	fossil	NOUN	Number=Sing	10 skin	compound
10	skin	skin	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 kept	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	keep	participle		tiny traces of colour not said here		colour's fossil skin			vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP PP.location»: agent=Agent in skin=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/267-horns-frills-plates-and-clubs/t10/