Test 11 · Turtles and tortoises

What would happen if a green turtle's seagrass meadow had no turtles grazing it?

Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 4 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: seagrass meadow, turtles · What happens: happen, have, graze · To what, where: turtles, turtle

This is test 11 of lesson 31 «Turtles and tortoises» 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	_	11 had	mark
5	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	7 turtle	det
6	green	green	ADJ	Degree=Pos	7 turtle	amod
7	turtle	turtle	NOUN	Number=Sing	10 meadow	nmod:poss
8	's	's	PART	_	7 turtle	case
9	seagrass	seagrass	NOUN	Number=Sing	10 meadow	compound
10	meadow	meadow	NOUN	Number=Sing	11 had	nsubj
11	had	have	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 happen	advcl
12	no	no	DET	PronType=Neg	13 turtles	det
13	turtles	turtle	NOUN	Number=Plur	11 had	obj
14	grazing	graze	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	13 turtles	acl
15	it	it	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	14 grazing	obj
16	?	?	PUNCT	_	3 happen	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	roles by
1	happen	would			vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
2	have a condition, not said to happen	past	a green turtle's seagrass meadow	no turtles	vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent turtle=Patient
3	graze	gerund	no turtles not said here	turtle	vn touch-20-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=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 · ← Mova's choice

The sea would become fresh water

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 become	nsubj
3	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	4 become	aux
4	become	become	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
5	fresh	fresh	ADJ	Degree=Pos	6 water	amod
6	water	water	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 become	xcomp

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	become	would	the sea	fresh water					vn become-109.1-1-1 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Patient

Option 2

Nothing at all would change

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Nothing	nothing	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Neg	5 change	nsubj
2	at	at	ADP	_	3 all	case
3	all	all	DET	PronType=Tot	1 Nothing	nmod
4	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	5 change	aux
5	change	change	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	change	would	Nothing						vn dress-41.1.1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent

Option 3

The seagrass would slowly turn into coral and rock

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	2 seagrass	det
2	seagrass	seagrass	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 turn	nsubj
3	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	5 turn	aux
4	slowly	slowly	ADV	_	5 turn	advmod
5	turn	turn	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
6	into	into	ADP	_	7 coral	case
7	coral	coral	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 turn	obl
8	and	and	CCONJ	_	9 rock	cc
9	rock	rock	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 coral	conj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	turn	would	the seagrass			coral and rock		slowly property	vn roll-51.3.1 «NP V PP.trajectory»: agent=Theme into coral=Trajectory

Option 4 · ✓ the right answer

The seagrass would grow less healthy, like an unmown lawn

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	2 seagrass	det
2	seagrass	seagrass	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 grow	nsubj
3	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	4 grow	aux
4	grow	grow	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
5	less	less	ADV	Degree=Cmp	6 healthy	advmod
6	healthy	healthy	ADJ	Degree=Pos	4 grow	xcomp
7	,	,	PUNCT	_	11 lawn	punct
8	like	like	ADP	_	11 lawn	case
9	an	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	11 lawn	det
10	unmown	unmown	ADJ	Degree=Pos	11 lawn	amod
11	lawn	lawn	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 grow	parataxis

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	grow	would	the seagrass					healthy property	vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=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/31-turtles-and-tortoises/t11/