Test 12 · Odd-looking animals: shoebills, star-nosed moles, saigas,…

Why might a scavenger of the deep sea need to survive months without food?

Mova's choice: option 2 · The right answer: option 3 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: scavenger · What happens: need, survive

This is test 12 of lesson 366 «Odd-looking animals: shoebills, star-nosed moles, saigas, pangolins and hagfish» 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	4 scavenger	advmod
2	might	might	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	4 scavenger	aux
3	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	4 scavenger	det
4	scavenger	scavenger	NOUN	Number=Sing	9 need	nsubj
5	of	of	ADP	_	8 sea	case
6	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	8 sea	det
7	deep	deep	ADJ	Degree=Pos	8 sea	amod
8	sea	sea	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 scavenger	nmod
9	need	need	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
10	to	to	PART	_	11 survive	mark
11	survive	survive	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	9 need	xcomp
12	months	month	NOUN	Number=Plur	11 survive	obj
13	without	without	ADP	_	14 food	case
14	food	food	NOUN	Number=Sing	11 survive	obl
15	?	?	PUNCT	_	9 need	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	need	present	a scavenger of the deep sea						vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP S_INF»: agent=Pivot clause=Theme
2	survive not said to happen	to-infinitive	a scavenger of the deep sea not said here				month	without food	vn exist-47.1-1 «NP V»: agent=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 only eats on its birthday, once every year

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 eats	nsubj
2	only	only	ADV	_	3 eats	advmod
3	eats	eat	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
4	on	on	ADP	_	6 birthday	case
5	its	its	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	6 birthday	nmod:poss
6	birthday	birthday	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 eats	obl
7	,	,	PUNCT	_	8 once	punct
8	once	once	ADV	NumForm=Word NumType=Mult	3 eats	advmod
9	every	every	DET	PronType=Tot	10 year	det
10	year	year	NOUN	Number=Sing	8 once	obl:unmarked

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	eat	present	It			its birthday		once property	vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent

Option 2 · ← Mova's choice

Food down there is poisonous, so it can only eat very little at a time

The tree, 15 words

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Food	food	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 poisonous	nsubj
2	down	down	ADV	_	1 Food	advmod
3	there	there	PRON	PronType=Dem	5 poisonous	expl
4	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	5 poisonous	cop
5	poisonous	poisonous	ADJ	Degree=Pos	root	root
6	,	,	PUNCT	_	11 eat	punct
7	so	so	ADV	_	11 eat	advmod
8	it	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	11 eat	nsubj
9	can	can	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	11 eat	aux
10	only	only	ADV	_	11 eat	advmod
11	eat	eat	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	5 poisonous	parataxis
12	very	very	ADV	_	13 little	advmod
13	little	little	ADJ	Degree=Pos	11 eat	obj
14	at	at	ADP	_	16 time	case
15	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	16 time	det
16	time	time	NOUN	Number=Sing	11 eat	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is	present	Food			there		poisonous property	tree rules
2	eat	can	Food	little			time		vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent little=Patient

Option 3 · ✓ the right answer

Dead whales and fish fall rarely, so meals may be far apart

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Dead	dead	ADJ	Degree=Pos	2 whales	amod
2	whales	whale	NOUN	Number=Plur	5 fall	nsubj
3	and	and	CCONJ	_	4 fish	cc
4	fish	fish	NOUN	Number=Plur	2 whales	conj
5	fall	fall	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
6	rarely	rarely	ADV	_	5 fall	advmod
7	,	,	PUNCT	_	12 far	punct
8	so	so	ADV	_	12 far	advmod
9	meals	meal	NOUN	Number=Plur	12 far	nsubj
10	may	may	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	12 far	aux
11	be	be	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	12 far	cop
12	far	far	ADV	Degree=Pos	13 apart	advmod
13	apart	apart	ADV	_	5 fall	advmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	fall	present	Dead whales and fish					apart, rarely property	vn occur-48.3 «NP V»: agent=Theme
2	is	may	meals					far property	tree rules

Option 4

It does not like eating and only nibbles for fun

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 like	nsubj
2	does	do	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	4 like	aux
3	not	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	4 like	advmod
4	like	like	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
5	eating	eat	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	4 like	xcomp
6	and	and	CCONJ	_	8 nibbles	cc
7	only	only	ADV	_	8 nibbles	advmod
8	nibbles	nibble	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	4 like	conj
9	for	for	ADP	_	10 fun	case
10	fun	fun	NOUN	Number=Sing	8 nibbles	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	other	roles by
1	not like	present · do-support	It		vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V S_ING»: agent=Pivot clause=Theme
2	eat not said to happen	gerund			vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent
3	nibble	present		for fun	vn chew-39.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent

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/366-odd-looking-animals-shoebills-star-nosed-moles-saigas-pangolins-and-hagfish/t12/