Test 9 · Street dogs and cats: feeding, safety and never touching a…

Why might fewer babies each year be kinder to street cats in the long run?

Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 2 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: fewer babies · What happens: be · To what, where: long run

This is test 9 of lesson 371 «Street dogs and cats: feeding, safety and never touching a strange animal» 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	8 kinder	advmod
2	might	might	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	8 kinder	aux
3	fewer	few	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	4 babies	amod
4	babies	baby	NOUN	Number=Plur	8 kinder	nsubj
5	each	each	DET	PronType=Tot	6 year	det
6	year	year	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 babies	nmod:unmarked
7	be	be	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	8 kinder	cop
8	kinder	kind	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	root	root
9	to	to	ADP	_	11 cats	case
10	street	street	NOUN	Number=Sing	11 cats	compound
11	cats	cat	NOUN	Number=Plur	8 kinder	obl
12	in	in	ADP	_	15 run	case
13	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	15 run	det
14	long	long	ADJ	Degree=Pos	15 run	amod
15	run	run	NOUN	Number=Sing	8 kinder	obl
16	?	?	PUNCT	_	8 kinder	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is	might	fewer babies each year			the long run		to street cats; kind 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 · ← Mova's choice

It makes the cats grow bigger

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 makes	nsubj
2	makes	make	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	4 cats	det
4	cats	cat	NOUN	Number=Plur	5 grow	nsubj
5	grow	grow	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	2 makes	xcomp
6	bigger	big	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	2 makes	xcomp

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	make	present	It					big property	tree rules
2	grow	present	the cats						vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme

Option 2 · ✓ the right answer

Fewer kittens are born to go hungry, and the cats already there can live on

The tree, 15 words

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Fewer	few	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	2 kittens	amod
2	kittens	kitten	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 born	nsubj:pass
3	are	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	4 born	aux:pass
4	born	bear	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	root	root
5	to	to	PART	_	6 go	mark
6	go	go	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	4 born	xcomp
7	hungry	hungry	ADJ	Degree=Pos	6 go	xcomp
8	,	,	PUNCT	_	15 live	punct
9	and	and	CCONJ	_	15 live	cc
10	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	11 cats	det
11	cats	cat	NOUN	Number=Plur	15 live	nsubj
12	already	already	ADV	_	13 there	advmod
13	there	there	ADV	PronType=Dem	11 cats	advmod
14	can	can	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	15 live	aux
15	live	live	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	4 born	advcl
16	on	on	ADP	_	15 live	compound:prt

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	other	roles by
1	bear	present · passive		Fewer kittens		tree rules
2	go	to-infinitive			hungry property	vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
3	live on	can	the cats			vn exist-47.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme

Option 3

It makes all cats go away at once

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 makes	nsubj
2	makes	make	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	all	all	DET	PronType=Tot	4 cats	det
4	cats	cat	NOUN	Number=Plur	5 go	nsubj
5	go	go	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	2 makes	xcomp
6	away	away	ADV	_	5 go	advmod
7	at	at	ADP	_	8 once	case
8	once	once	ADV	NumForm=Word NumType=Mult	5 go	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	make	present	It						tree rules
2	go away	present	all cats					away property	vn occur-48.3-2 «NP V PP»: agent=Theme at once=Location

Option 4

Cats with no babies stop eating and so they need much less food

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Cats	cat	NOUN	Number=Plur	5 stop	nsubj
2	with	with	ADP	_	4 babies	case
3	no	no	DET	PronType=Neg	4 babies	det
4	babies	baby	NOUN	Number=Plur	1 Cats	nmod
5	stop	stop	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
6	eating	eat	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	5 stop	xcomp
7	and	and	CCONJ	_	10 need	cc
8	so	so	ADV	_	10 need	advmod
9	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	10 need	nsubj
10	need	need	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	5 stop	conj
11	much	much	ADV	_	12 less	advmod
12	less	less	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	13 food	amod
13	food	food	NOUN	Number=Sing	10 need	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	roles by
1	stop	present	Cats with no babies		vn stop-55.4-1-1 «NP V S_ING»: agent=Affector clause=Eventuality
2	eat	gerund	Cats with no babies not said here		vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent
3	need	present	Cats = cat	less food	vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: agent=Pivot food=Theme

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/371-street-dogs-and-cats-feeding-safety-and-never-touching-a-strange-animal/t9/