Test 5 · ★★ · The garden in autumn: colours, conkers, webs and buried nuts

What would happen to young oak woods if jays stopped burying acorns?

Mova's choice: option 2 · The right answer: option 4 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: jays · What happens: happen, stop, bury · To what, where: acorns

This is test 5 · ★★ of lesson 335 «The garden in autumn: colours, conkers, webs and buried nuts» 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	_	7 woods	case
5	young	young	ADJ	Degree=Pos	7 woods	amod
6	oak	oak	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 woods	compound
7	woods	wood	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 happen	obl
8	if	if	SCONJ	_	10 stopped	mark
9	jays	jay	NOUN	Number=Plur	10 stopped	nsubj
10	stopped	stop	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 happen	advcl
11	burying	bury	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	10 stopped	xcomp
12	acorns	acorn	NOUN	Number=Plur	11 burying	obj
13	?	?	PUNCT	_	3 happen	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	other	roles by
1	happen	would			to young oak woods	vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
2	stop a condition, not said to happen	past	jays			vn stop-55.4-1-1 «NP V S_ING»: agent=Affector clause=Eventuality
3	bury	gerund	jays not said here	acorns		vn put-9.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent acorn=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

Nothing; jays never touch acorns

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Nothing	nothing	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Neg	3 jays	compound
2	;	;	PUNCT	_	1 Nothing	punct
3	jays	jay	NOUN	Number=Plur	5 touch	nsubj
4	never	never	ADV	PronType=Neg	5 touch	advmod
5	touch	touch	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
6	acorns	acorn	NOUN	Number=Plur	5 touch	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	not touch	present	Nothing jays	acorns					vn contiguous_location-47.8-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme acorn=Co-Theme

Option 2 · ← Mova's choice

More oaks would grow than ever

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	More	more	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	2 oaks	amod
2	oaks	oak	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 grow	nsubj
3	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	4 grow	aux
4	grow	grow	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
5	than	than	ADP	_	6 ever	case
6	ever	ever	ADV	PronType=Ind	4 grow	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	grow	would	More oaks						vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme

Option 3

Oaks would start growing conkers

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Oaks	oak	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 start	nsubj
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 start	aux
3	start	start	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	growing	grow	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	3 start	xcomp
5	conkers	conker	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 growing	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	start	would	Oaks						vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S_ING»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality
2	grow	gerund	Oaks not said here	conkers					vn appear-48.1.1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location conker=Theme

Option 4 · ✓ the right answer

Fewer new oaks would grow away from the old trees

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Fewer	few	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	3 oaks	amod
2	new	new	ADJ	Degree=Pos	3 oaks	amod
3	oaks	oak	NOUN	Number=Plur	5 grow	nsubj
4	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	5 grow	aux
5	grow	grow	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
6	away	away	ADV	_	5 grow	advmod
7	from	from	ADP	_	10 trees	case
8	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	10 trees	det
9	old	old	ADJ	Degree=Pos	10 trees	amod
10	trees	tree	NOUN	Number=Plur	5 grow	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	grow away	would	Fewer new oaks					from the old trees; away property	vn grow-26.2.1 «NP.product V PP.patient»: agent=Product from tree=Patient

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/335-the-garden-in-autumn-colours-conkers-webs-and-buried-nuts/t5/