Test 10 · ★ · Rice, maize and potatoes: the plants that feed the world

Why might a plant that keeps its food underground cope well with cold mountain weather?

Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 3 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: plant · What happens: keep · To what, where: food

This is test 10 · ★ of lesson 345 «Rice, maize and potatoes: the plants that feed the world» 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	root	root
2	might	might	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	1 Why	aux
3	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	4 plant	det
4	plant	plant	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 might	nsubj
5	that	that	PRON	PronType=Rel	6 keeps	nsubj
6	keeps	keep	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	4 plant	acl:relcl
7	its	its	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	8 food	nmod:poss
8	food	food	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 keeps	obj
9	underground	underground	ADJ	Degree=Pos	10 cope	amod
10	cope	cope	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 keeps	obj
11	well	well	ADV	Degree=Pos	6 keeps	advmod
12	with	with	ADP	_	15 weather	case
13	cold	cold	ADJ	Degree=Pos	15 weather	amod
14	mountain	mountain	NOUN	Number=Sing	15 weather	compound
15	weather	weather	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 keeps	obl
16	?	?	PUNCT	_	1 Why	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	keep	present	a plant	plant's food				with cold mountain weather; well property	vn sustain-55.6-1 «NP V NP ADJ»: agent=Agent food=Theme cope=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 · ← Mova's choice

Cold makes potatoes grow faster

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Cold	cold	ADJ	Degree=Pos	2 makes	nsubj
2	makes	make	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	potatoes	potato	NOUN	Number=Plur	2 makes	obj
4	grow	grow	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	2 makes	xcomp
5	faster	fast	ADV	Degree=Cmp	4 grow	advmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	make	present	Cold	potatoes					tree rules
2	grow	infinitive	potatoes not said here					fast property	vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme

Option 2

Underground plants do not need water

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Underground	underground	ADJ	Degree=Pos	2 plants	amod
2	plants	plant	NOUN	Number=Plur	5 need	nsubj
3	do	do	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	5 need	aux
4	not	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	5 need	advmod
5	need	need	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
6	water	water	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 need	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	not need	present · do-support	Underground plants	water					vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: agent=Pivot water=Theme

Option 3 · ✓ the right answer

The soil protects its stored food from frost

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	2 soil	det
2	soil	soil	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 protects	nsubj
3	protects	protect	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
4	its	its	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	6 food	nmod:poss
5	stored	store	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	6 food	amod
6	food	food	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 protects	obj
7	from	from	ADP	_	8 frost	case
8	frost	frost	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 protects	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	protect	present	the soil	soil's stored food				from frost	vn defend-72.3 «NP V NP PP.theme»: agent=Agent food=Beneficiary from frost=Theme
2	store	participle							vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent

Option 4

Mountain air is always warm, even at the very top

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Mountain	mountain	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 air	compound
2	air	air	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 warm	nsubj
3	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	5 warm	cop
4	always	always	ADV	PronType=Tot	5 warm	advmod
5	warm	warm	ADJ	Degree=Pos	root	root
6	,	,	PUNCT	_	11 top	punct
7	even	even	ADV	_	11 top	advmod
8	at	at	ADP	_	11 top	case
9	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	11 top	det
10	very	very	ADV	_	11 top	advmod
11	top	top	ADJ	Degree=Pos	5 warm	conj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is	present	Mountain air					always, warm property	tree rules
2	be		Mountain air not said here						tree rules

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/345-rice-maize-and-potatoes-the-plants-that-feed-the-world/t10/