Test 9 · ★ · The vegetable patch: peas, potatoes, tomatoes and slugs

Why does a slug follow its own trail?

Mova's choice: option 4 · The right answer: option 4 · right ✓ · Who acts: slug · What happens: follow · To what, where: own trail

This is test 9 · ★ of lesson 338 «The vegetable patch: peas, potatoes, tomatoes and slugs» 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 follow	advmod
2	does	do	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	5 follow	aux
3	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	4 slug	det
4	slug	slug	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 follow	nsubj
5	follow	follow	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
6	its	its	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	8 trail	nmod:poss
7	own	own	ADJ	Degree=Pos	8 trail	amod
8	trail	trail	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 follow	obj
9	?	?	PUNCT	_	5 follow	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	follow	present · do-support	a slug	slug's own trail					vn chase-51.6 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent trail=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

It wants to clean up its mess

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	2 wants	nsubj
2	wants	want	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	to	to	PART	_	4 clean	mark
4	clean	clean	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	2 wants	xcomp
5	up	up	ADP	_	4 clean	compound:prt
6	its	its	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	7 mess	nmod:poss
7	mess	mess	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 clean	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	roles by
1	want	present	It		vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP S_INF»: agent=Pivot clause=Theme
2	clean up not said to happen	to-infinitive		its mess	vn other_cos-45.4 «NP V NP.patient»: agent=Agent mess=Patient
3	mess		its = it		nom mess «state transitive»: poss=agent

Option 2

It is hunting itself

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 hunting	nsubj
2	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	3 hunting	aux
3	hunting	hunt	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	root	root
4	itself	itself	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs Reflex=Yes	3 hunting	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	hunt	present · progressive	It	itself = it					vn hunt-35.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent itself=Theme

Option 3

It cannot turn round

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	4 turn	nsubj
2	can	can	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	4 turn	aux
3	not	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	4 turn	advmod
4	turn	turn	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
5	round	round	ADV	_	4 turn	advmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	not turn round	can	It					round property	vn roll-51.3.1 «NP.theme V»: agent=Theme

Option 4 · ← Mova's choice · ✓ the right answer

Its slime trail helps it find its way home

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	3 trail	nmod:poss
2	slime	slime	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 trail	compound
3	trail	trail	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 helps	nsubj
4	helps	help	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
5	it	it	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	4 helps	obj
6	find	find	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	4 helps	xcomp
7	its	its	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	8 way	nmod:poss
8	way	way	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 find	obj
9	home	home	ADV	_	6 find	advmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	help	present	Its slime trail	it					vn help-72.1-1-1 «NP V NP S_INF»: agent=Agent it=Beneficiary clause=Theme
2	find	infinitive		trail's way				home property	vn discover-84 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent way=Topic

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/338-the-vegetable-patch-peas-potatoes-tomatoes-and-slugs/t9/