Test 11 · Tortoises, lizards and geckos as pets: heat, light and was…

Why does damp air help a gecko shed its skin?

Mova's choice: option 4 · The right answer: option 1 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: damp air, gecko · What happens: help, shed · To what, where: skin

This is test 11 of lesson 329 «Tortoises, lizards and geckos as pets: heat, light and washing hands» 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	Why	why	ADV	PronType=Int	5 help	advmod
2	does	do	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	5 help	aux
3	damp	damp	ADJ	Degree=Pos	4 air	amod
4	air	air	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 help	nsubj
5	help	help	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
6	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	7 gecko	det
7	gecko	gecko	NOUN	Number=Sing	8 shed	nsubj
8	shed	shed	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	5 help	ccomp
9	its	its	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	10 skin	nmod:poss
10	skin	skin	NOUN	Number=Sing	8 shed	obj
11	?	?	PUNCT	_	5 help	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	help	present · do-support	damp air						vn help-72.1-1-1 «NP V NP S_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Theme
2	shed	past	a gecko	gecko's skin					vn substance_emission-43.4-1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location skin=Source

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 right answer

Damp skin peels off more easily, so none gets stuck on its toes

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Damp	damp	ADJ	Degree=Pos	2 skin	amod
2	skin	skin	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 peels	nsubj
3	peels	peel	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
4	off	off	ADP	_	3 peels	compound:prt
5	more	more	ADV	Degree=Cmp	6 easily	advmod
6	easily	easily	ADV	_	3 peels	advmod
7	,	,	PUNCT	_	11 stuck	punct
8	so	so	ADV	_	11 stuck	advmod
9	none	none	PRON	PronType=Neg	11 stuck	nsubj:pass
10	gets	get	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	11 stuck	aux:pass
11	stuck	stick	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	3 peels	parataxis
12	on	on	ADP	_	14 toes	case
13	its	its	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	14 toes	nmod:poss
14	toes	toe	NOUN	Number=Plur	11 stuck	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	peel off	present	Damp skin					easily property	vn pit-10.7 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent
2	stick	present · passive		none		skin's toes			vn spray-9.7-1 «NP V NP PP.destination»: subject=Theme on toe=Destination

Option 2

Water soaks into the old skin and dissolves it all away at once

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Water	water	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 soaks	nsubj
2	soaks	soak	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	into	into	ADP	_	6 skin	case
4	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	6 skin	det
5	old	old	ADJ	Degree=Pos	6 skin	amod
6	skin	skin	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 soaks	obl
7	and	and	CCONJ	_	8 dissolves	cc
8	dissolves	dissolve	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	2 soaks	conj
9	it	it	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	8 dissolves	obj
10	all	all	DET	PronType=Tot	9 it	det
11	away	away	ADV	_	8 dissolves	advmod
12	at	at	ADP	_	13 once	case
13	once	once	ADV	NumForm=Word NumType=Mult	8 dissolves	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	soak	present	Water			the old skin			vn other_cos-45.4 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient
2	dissolve away	present	Water not said here	Water				away property	vn break-45.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Patient

Option 3

Damp air makes geckos sleep

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Damp	damp	ADJ	Degree=Pos	2 air	amod
2	air	air	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 makes	nsubj
3	makes	make	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
4	geckos	gecko	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 makes	obj
5	sleep	sleep	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 makes	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	make	present	Damp air	sleep	geckos				vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP NP»: agent=Asset gecko=Beneficiary sleep=Product

Option 4 · ← Mova's choice

Damp air makes the skin grow faster

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Damp	damp	ADJ	Degree=Pos	2 air	amod
2	air	air	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 makes	nsubj
3	makes	make	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
4	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	5 skin	det
5	skin	skin	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 makes	obj
6	grow	grow	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	3 makes	xcomp
7	faster	fast	ADV	Degree=Cmp	3 makes	advmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	make	present	Damp air	the skin				fast property	tree rules
2	grow	present	the skin not said here						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/329-tortoises-lizards-and-geckos-as-pets-heat-light-and-washing-hands/t11/