Test 8 · ★ · City birds: sparrows, starlings, swifts, crows and peregri…

«sparrows are everywhere, no way they're in trouble» What is true?

Mova's choice: option 4 · The right answer: option 2 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: sparrows, way · What happens: be · To what, where: trouble

This is test 8 · ★ of lesson 369 «City birds: sparrows, starlings, swifts, crows and peregrines on tall buildings» 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	«	«	PUNCT	_	4 everywhere	punct
2	sparrows	sparrow	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 everywhere	nsubj
3	are	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	4 everywhere	cop
4	everywhere	everywhere	ADV	PronType=Tot	15 true	advmod
5	,	,	PUNCT	_	7 way	punct
6	no	no	DET	PronType=Neg	7 way	det
7	way	way	NOUN	Number=Sing	11 trouble	nsubj
8	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	11 trouble	nsubj
9	're	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	11 trouble	cop
10	in	in	ADP	_	11 trouble	case
11	trouble	trouble	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 everywhere	parataxis
12	»	»	PUNCT	_	4 everywhere	punct
13	What	what	PRON	PronType=Int	15 true	nsubj
14	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	15 true	cop
15	true	true	ADJ	Degree=Pos	root	root
16	?	?	PUNCT	_	15 true	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	where	other	roles by
1	is in a quote	present	sparrows		everywhere property	tree rules
2	is in a quote	present	no way	trouble		tree rules
3	is	present			true property	tree rules

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

Sparrows are extinct

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Sparrows	sparrow	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 extinct	nsubj
2	are	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	3 extinct	cop
3	extinct	extinct	ADJ	Degree=Pos	root	root

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is	present	Sparrows					extinct property	tree rules

Option 2 · ✓ the right answer

In London their numbers fell by about two-thirds, and scientists still argue why

The tree, 14 words

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	In	in	ADP	_	2 London	case
2	London	London	PROPN	Number=Sing	5 fell	obl
3	their	their	PRON	Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	4 numbers	nmod:poss
4	numbers	number	NOUN	Number=Plur	5 fell	nsubj
5	fell	fall	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
6	by	by	ADP	_	10 thirds	case
7	about	about	ADV	_	8 two	advmod
8	two	two	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	10 thirds	nummod
9	-	-	PUNCT	_	8 two	punct
10	thirds	third	NOUN	Number=Plur	5 fell	obl
11	,	,	PUNCT	_	15 argue	punct
12	and	and	CCONJ	_	15 argue	cc
13	scientists	scientist	NOUN	Number=Plur	15 argue	nsubj
14	still	still	ADV	_	15 argue	advmod
15	argue	argue	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	5 fell	conj
16	why	why	ADV	PronType=Int	15 argue	advmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	fall	past	their numbers			London		by two thirds	vn occur-48.3 «NP V PP»: agent=Theme in london=Location
2	argue speech: disagree	present	scientists				still		vn correspond-36.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent

Option 3

They are the most common bird in the world and their numbers have never fallen

The tree, 15 words

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	They	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	6 bird	nsubj
2	are	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	6 bird	cop
3	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	6 bird	det
4	most	most	ADV	Degree=Sup	5 common	advmod
5	common	common	ADJ	Degree=Pos	6 bird	amod
6	bird	bird	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root
7	in	in	ADP	_	9 world	case
8	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	9 world	det
9	world	world	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 bird	nmod
10	and	and	CCONJ	_	15 fallen	cc
11	their	their	PRON	Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	12 numbers	nmod:poss
12	numbers	number	NOUN	Number=Plur	15 fallen	nsubj
13	have	have	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	15 fallen	aux
14	never	never	ADV	PronType=Neg	15 fallen	advmod
15	fallen	fall	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part	6 bird	conj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is a	present	They	the common bird		the world			tree rules
2	not fall	present · perfect	their numbers						vn occur-48.3 «NP V»: agent=Theme

Option 4 · ← Mova's choice

Sparrows only live in the countryside

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Sparrows	sparrow	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 live	nsubj
2	only	only	ADV	_	3 live	advmod
3	live	live	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
4	in	in	ADP	_	6 countryside	case
5	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	6 countryside	det
6	countryside	countryside	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 live	obl

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

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/369-city-birds-sparrows-starlings-swifts-crows-and-peregrines-on-tall-buildings/t8/