Test 4 · Birds: feathers, wings, eggs and flight

What would happen to a duck covered in oil from a spill at sea?

Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 1 · right ✓ · What happens: happen, cover · To what, where: duck

This is test 4 of lesson 33 «Birds: feathers, wings, eggs and flight» 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	to	to	ADP	_	6 duck	case
5	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	6 duck	det
6	duck	duck	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 happen	obl
7	covered	cover	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	6 duck	acl
8	in	in	ADP	_	9 oil	case
9	oil	oil	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 covered	obl
10	from	from	ADP	_	12 spill	case
11	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	12 spill	det
12	spill	spill	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 covered	obl
13	at	at	ADP	_	14 sea	case
14	sea	sea	NOUN	Number=Sing	12 spill	nmod
15	?	?	PUNCT	_	3 happen	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	happen	would						to a duck	vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
2	cover	participle		a duck not said here				from a spill at sea; in oil	vn fill-9.8-1 «NP V NP PP.theme»: agent=Agent in oil=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 right answer

Its feathers would let water in and it would get soaked and cold

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Its	its	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	2 feathers	nmod:poss
2	feathers	feather	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 let	nsubj
3	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	4 let	aux
4	let	let	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
5	water	water	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 let	obj
6	in	in	ADP	_	4 let	compound:prt
7	and	and	CCONJ	_	11 soaked	cc
8	it	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	11 soaked	nsubj:pass
9	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	11 soaked	aux
10	get	get	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	11 soaked	aux:pass
11	soaked	soak	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	4 let	conj
12	and	and	CCONJ	_	13 cold	cc
13	cold	cold	ADJ	Degree=Pos	11 soaked	conj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	let in	would	Its feathers	water					vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent water=Theme
2	soak	would · passive		water					vn wipe_manner-10.4.1 «NP V NP.theme»: subject=Theme

Option 2

It would float even better

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	It	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	3 float	nsubj
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 float	aux
3	float	float	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	even	even	ADV	_	5 better	advmod
5	better	good	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	3 float	xcomp

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	float	would	It					good property	vn run-51.3.2-2 «NP V»: agent=Theme

Option 3

Nothing at all, as ducks are already oily, so a bit more does not matter

The tree, 15 words

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Nothing	nothing	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Neg	root	root
2	at	at	ADP	_	3 all	case
3	all	all	DET	PronType=Tot	1 Nothing	nmod
4	,	,	PUNCT	_	9 oily	punct
5	as	as	SCONJ	_	9 oily	mark
6	ducks	duck	NOUN	Number=Plur	9 oily	nsubj
7	are	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	9 oily	cop
8	already	already	ADV	_	9 oily	advmod
9	oily	oily	ADV	_	1 Nothing	conj
10	,	,	PUNCT	_	17 matter	punct
11	so	so	ADV	_	17 matter	advmod
12	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	13 bit	det
13	bit	bit	NOUN	Number=Sing	14 more	obl:unmarked
14	more	more	ADV	Degree=Cmp	17 matter	advmod
15	does	do	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	17 matter	aux
16	not	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	17 matter	advmod
17	matter	matter	VERB	Mood=Imp VerbForm=Fin	9 oily	parataxis

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is	present	ducks					oily property	tree rules
2	not matter	present · do-support							vn matter-91 «NP V»: agent=Stimulus

Option 4

It would fly faster

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	It	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	3 fly	nsubj
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 fly	aux
3	fly	fly	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	faster	fast	ADV	Degree=Cmp	3 fly	advmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	fly	would	It					fast property	vn spatial_configuration-47.6-1 «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/33-birds-feathers-wings-eggs-and-flight/t4/