Test 7 · Odd-looking animals: shoebills, star-nosed moles, saigas,…

Why is living in a giant herd both safe and risky for saigas?

Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 4 · wrong ✗ · What happens: live · To what, where: giant herd

This is test 7 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	3 living	advmod
2	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	3 living	aux
3	living	live	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	root	root
4	in	in	ADP	_	7 herd	case
5	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	7 herd	det
6	giant	giant	ADJ	Degree=Pos	7 herd	amod
7	herd	herd	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 living	obl
8	both	both	CCONJ	_	9 safe	cc:preconj
9	safe	safe	ADJ	Degree=Pos	7 herd	amod
10	and	and	CCONJ	_	11 risky	cc
11	risky	risky	ADJ	Degree=Pos	9 safe	conj
12	for	for	ADP	_	13 saigas	case
13	saigas	saiga	NOUN	Number=Plur	9 safe	obl
14	?	?	PUNCT	_	3 living	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	live	present · progressive				a giant herd			vn lodge-46 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in herd=Location

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

Herds are always dangerous, because the saigas fight

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Herds	herd	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 dangerous	nsubj
2	are	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	4 dangerous	cop
3	always	always	ADV	PronType=Tot	4 dangerous	advmod
4	dangerous	dangerous	ADJ	Degree=Pos	root	root
5	,	,	PUNCT	_	9 fight	punct
6	because	because	SCONJ	_	9 fight	mark
7	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	8 saigas	det
8	saigas	saiga	NOUN	Number=Plur	9 fight	nsubj
9	fight	fight	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	4 dangerous	conj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is	present	Herds					always, dangerous property	tree rules
2	fight	present	the saigas						vn battle-36.4-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent

Option 2

Herds are always safe, because wolves never attack big groups

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Herds	herd	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 safe	nsubj
2	are	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	4 safe	cop
3	always	always	ADV	PronType=Tot	4 safe	advmod
4	safe	safe	ADJ	Degree=Pos	root	root
5	,	,	PUNCT	_	9 attack	punct
6	because	because	SCONJ	_	9 attack	mark
7	wolves	wolf	NOUN	Number=Plur	9 attack	nsubj
8	never	never	ADV	PronType=Neg	9 attack	advmod
9	attack	attack	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	4 safe	advcl
10	big	big	ADJ	Degree=Pos	11 groups	amod
11	groups	group	NOUN	Number=Plur	9 attack	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is	present	Herds					always, safe property	tree rules
2	not attack	present	wolves	big groups					vn attack-60.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent group=Patient

Option 3

Herds make the saigas slower and easier to catch

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Herds	herd	NOUN	Number=Plur	2 make	nsubj
2	make	make	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	4 saigas	det
4	saigas	saiga	NOUN	Number=Plur	2 make	obj
5	slower	slow	ADV	Degree=Cmp	7 easier	advmod
6	and	and	CCONJ	_	7 easier	cc
7	easier	easy	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	2 make	xcomp
8	to	to	PART	_	9 catch	mark
9	catch	catch	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	7 easier	xcomp

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	make	present	Herds	the saigas				easy property	vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset saiga=Product
2	catch	to-infinitive	the saigas not said here						vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent

Option 4 · ✓ the right answer

A herd protects from hunters, but one disease can hit huge numbers at once

The tree, 14 words

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	A	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	2 herd	det
2	herd	herd	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 protects	nsubj
3	protects	protect	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
4	from	from	ADP	_	5 hunters	case
5	hunters	hunter	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 protects	obl
6	,	,	PUNCT	_	11 hit	punct
7	but	but	CCONJ	_	11 hit	cc
8	one	one	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	9 disease	nummod
9	disease	disease	NOUN	Number=Sing	11 hit	nsubj
10	can	can	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	11 hit	aux
11	hit	hit	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	3 protects	conj
12	huge	huge	ADJ	Degree=Pos	13 numbers	amod
13	numbers	number	NOUN	Number=Plur	11 hit	obj
14	at	at	ADP	_	15 once	case
15	once	once	ADV	NumForm=Word NumType=Mult	11 hit	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	protect	present	a herd					from hunters	vn defend-72.3 «NP V NP PP.theme»: agent=Agent from hunter=Theme
2	hit	can	one disease	huge numbers					vn throw-17.1-1 «NP V NP PP.destinations»: agent=Agent number=Theme at once=Destination

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/t7/