Test 5 · Rodents of every kind: squirrels, marmots, prairie dogs, p…

«mate reckons porcupines fire their spikes like arrows» What is right?

Mova's choice: option 3 · The right answer: option 2 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: mate, their · What happens: reckon, be, spike · To what, where: porcupines fire · Speech: someone speaks here

This is test 5 of lesson 317 «Rodents of every kind: squirrels, marmots, prairie dogs, porcupines, chinchillas and dormice» 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	«	«	PUNCT	_	3 reckons	punct
2	mate	mate	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 reckons	nsubj
3	reckons	reckon	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
4	porcupines	porcupine	NOUN	Number=Plur	5 fire	compound
5	fire	fire	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 reckons	obj
6	their	their	PRON	Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	7 spikes	nmod:poss
7	spikes	spike	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 reckons	obj
8	like	like	ADP	_	9 arrows	case
9	arrows	arrow	NOUN	Number=Plur	7 spikes	nmod
10	»	»	PUNCT	_	3 reckons	punct
11	What	what	PRON	PronType=Int	13 right	nsubj
12	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	13 right	cop
13	right	right	ADJ	Degree=Pos	3 reckons	parataxis
14	?	?	PUNCT	_	3 reckons	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	other	roles by
1	reckon in a quote	present	mate	porcupines fire		tree rules
2	is	present			right property	tree rules
3	spike in a quote		their = they		like arrows	nom spike «event intransitive»: poss=agent like=obl

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

True, they reload every hour

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	True	true	ADJ	Degree=Pos	4 reload	advcl
2	,	,	PUNCT	_	1 True	punct
3	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	4 reload	nsubj
4	reload	reload	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
5	every	every	DET	PronType=Tot	6 hour	det
6	hour	hour	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 reload	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	reload	present	they				hour		tree rules

Option 2 · ✓ the right answer

They cannot; the barbed quills stick in when touched

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	8 stick	nsubj
2	can	can	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	8 stick	aux
3	not	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	8 stick	advmod
4	;	;	PUNCT	_	8 stick	punct
5	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	7 quills	det
6	barbed	barbed	ADJ	Degree=Pos	7 quills	amod
7	quills	quill	NOUN	Number=Plur	8 stick	nsubj
8	stick	stick	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
9	in	in	ADP	_	8 stick	compound:prt
10	when	when	ADV	PronType=Int	11 touched	advmod
11	touched	touch	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	8 stick	advcl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	not stick in	can	They						vn shake-22.3-2 «NP V ADV-Middle»: agent=Patient
2	touch	participle	They not said here						vn contiguous_location-47.8-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme

Option 3 · ← Mova's choice

True, they can shoot them the length of a football pitch

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	True	true	ADJ	Degree=Pos	5 shoot	advcl
2	,	,	PUNCT	_	1 True	punct
3	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	5 shoot	nsubj
4	can	can	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	5 shoot	aux
5	shoot	shoot	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
6	them	they	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	5 shoot	obj
7	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	8 length	det
8	length	length	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 shoot	obj
9	of	of	ADP	_	12 pitch	case
10	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	12 pitch	det
11	football	football	NOUN	Number=Sing	12 pitch	compound
12	pitch	pitch	NOUN	Number=Sing	8 length	nmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	shoot	can	they	them = they					vn throw-17.1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent they=Destination length=Theme

Option 4

True, but only the baby ones

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	True	true	ADJ	Degree=Pos	7 ones	amod
2	,	,	PUNCT	_	7 ones	punct
3	but	but	CCONJ	_	7 ones	cc
4	only	only	ADV	_	7 ones	advmod
5	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	7 ones	det
6	baby	baby	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 ones	compound
7	ones	one	NOUN	Number=Plur	root	root

The frames reader finds no event or fact in this sentence.

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/317-rodents-of-every-kind-squirrels-marmots-prairie-dogs-porcupines-chinchillas-and-dormice/t5/