Test 7 · ★★ · Falcons, hawks, kites, ospreys and vultures

What would happen if a town's vultures all died?

Mova's choice: option 4 · The right answer: option 3 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: vultures · What happens: happen, die

This is test 7 · ★★ of lesson 324 «Falcons, hawks, kites, ospreys and vultures» 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	_	10 died	mark
5	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	6 town	det
6	town	town	NOUN	Number=Sing	8 vultures	nmod:poss
7	's	's	PART	_	6 town	case
8	vultures	vulture	NOUN	Number=Plur	10 died	nsubj
9	all	all	ADV	_	10 died	advmod
10	died	die	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 happen	advcl
11	?	?	PUNCT	_	3 happen	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	happen	would							vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
2	die a condition, not said to happen	past	a town's vultures					all property	vn calibratable_cos-45.6.1 «NP.attribute V»: agent=Attribute

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 town would become much cleaner, because vultures spread dirt and germs

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	2 town	det
2	town	town	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 become	nsubj
3	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	4 become	aux
4	become	become	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
5	much	much	ADV	_	6 cleaner	advmod
6	cleaner	clean	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	4 become	xcomp
7	,	,	PUNCT	_	10 spread	punct
8	because	because	SCONJ	_	10 spread	mark
9	vultures	vulture	NOUN	Number=Plur	10 spread	nsubj
10	spread	spread	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	4 become	parataxis
11	dirt	dirt	NOUN	Number=Sing	10 spread	obj
12	and	and	CCONJ	_	13 germs	cc
13	germs	germ	NOUN	Number=Plur	11 dirt	conj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	become	would	the town					clean property	vn become-109.1-1-1 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Patient
2	spread	present	vultures	dirt and germs					vn appear-48.1.1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location dirt=Theme

Option 2

Lions would move in to clean up

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Lions	lion	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 move	nsubj
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 move	aux
3	move	move	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	in	in	ADV	_	3 move	advmod
5	to	to	PART	_	6 clean	mark
6	clean	clean	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	3 move	advcl
7	up	up	ADP	_	6 clean	compound:prt

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	move in	would	Lions						vn roll-51.3.1 «NP.theme V»: agent=Theme
2	clean up	to-infinitive	Lions not said here						vn other_cos-45.4 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient

Option 3 · ✓ the right answer

Dead animals would rot longer and rats and stray dogs could increase

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Dead	dead	ADJ	Degree=Pos	2 animals	amod
2	animals	animal	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 rot	nsubj
3	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	4 rot	aux
4	rot	rot	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
5	longer	long	ADV	Degree=Cmp	4 rot	advmod
6	and	and	CCONJ	_	12 increase	cc
7	rats	rat	NOUN	Number=Plur	12 increase	nsubj
8	and	and	CCONJ	_	10 dogs	cc
9	stray	stray	ADJ	Degree=Pos	10 dogs	amod
10	dogs	dog	NOUN	Number=Plur	7 rats	conj
11	could	could	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	12 increase	aux
12	increase	increase	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	4 rot	conj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	rot	would	Dead animals					long property	vn entity_specific_cos-45.5 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient
2	increase	could	rats and stray dogs						vn caused_calibratable_cos-45.6.2-1 «NP V ADV-Middle»: agent=Patient

Option 4 · ← Mova's choice

Nothing, vultures do no work

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Nothing	nothing	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Neg	3 vultures	compound
2	,	,	PUNCT	_	1 Nothing	punct
3	vultures	vulture	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 do	nsubj
4	do	do	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
5	no	no	DET	PronType=Neg	6 work	det
6	work	work	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 do	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	do	present	Nothing vultures	no work					vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent work=Eventuality

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.

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