Test 8 · White storks: Ukraine's favourite birds and their journey…

Why is soaring cheaper for a big bird than flapping?

Mova's choice: option 3 · The right answer: option 3 · right ✓ · What happens: soar, flap

This is test 8 of lesson 375 «White storks: Ukraine's favourite birds and their journey to Africa» 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 soaring	advmod
2	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	3 soaring	aux
3	soaring	soar	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	4 cheaper	csubj
4	cheaper	cheap	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	root	root
5	for	for	ADP	_	8 bird	case
6	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	8 bird	det
7	big	big	ADJ	Degree=Pos	8 bird	amod
8	bird	bird	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 cheaper	obl
9	than	than	SCONJ	_	10 flapping	mark
10	flapping	flap	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	8 bird	advcl
11	?	?	PUNCT	_	4 cheaper	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	soar	present · progressive							vn calibratable_cos-45.6.1-1 «NP.attribute V»: agent=Attribute
2	flap	gerund							vn body_internal_motion-49.1 «NP V»: agent=Agent

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

Big birds cannot flap at all

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Big	big	ADJ	Degree=Pos	2 birds	amod
2	birds	bird	NOUN	Number=Plur	5 flap	nsubj
3	can	can	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	5 flap	aux
4	not	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	5 flap	advmod
5	flap	flap	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
6	at	at	ADP	_	7 all	case
7	all	all	DET	PronType=Tot	5 flap	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	not flap	can	Big birds			all			vn modes_of_being_with_motion-47.3 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme at all=Location

Option 2

Soaring is faster than any plane, so it saves time on the journey

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Soaring	soaring	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 faster	nsubj
2	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	3 faster	cop
3	faster	fast	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	root	root
4	than	than	ADP	_	6 plane	case
5	any	any	DET	PronType=Ind	6 plane	det
6	plane	plane	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 faster	obl
7	,	,	PUNCT	_	10 saves	punct
8	so	so	ADV	_	10 saves	advmod
9	it	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	10 saves	nsubj
10	saves	save	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	3 faster	conj
11	time	time	NOUN	Number=Sing	10 saves	obj
12	on	on	ADP	_	14 journey	case
13	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	14 journey	det
14	journey	journey	NOUN	Number=Sing	10 saves	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is	present	Soaring					than any plane; fast property	tree rules
2	save	present	Soaring			the journey	time		vn get-13.5.1-1 «NP V NP PP.source»: agent=Agent on journey=Source

Option 3 · ← Mova's choice · ✓ the right answer

Rising warm air lifts it, so it hardly beats its wings

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Rising	rise	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	4 lifts	csubj
2	warm	warm	ADJ	Degree=Pos	3 air	amod
3	air	air	NOUN	Number=Sing	1 Rising	obj
4	lifts	lift	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
5	it	it	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	4 lifts	obj
6	,	,	PUNCT	_	10 beats	punct
7	so	so	ADV	_	10 beats	advmod
8	it	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	10 beats	nsubj
9	hardly	hardly	ADV	_	10 beats	advmod
10	beats	beat	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	4 lifts	parataxis
11	its	its	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	12 wings	nmod:poss
12	wings	wing	NOUN	Number=Plur	10 beats	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	other	roles by
1	rise	gerund		warm air		vn appear-48.1.1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location air=Theme
2	lift	present	Rising	air		vn put_direction-9.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Theme
3	beat	present	air	air's wings	hardly property	vn sound_emission-43.2 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location wing=Theme

Option 4

Flapping makes storks lighter

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Flapping	flapping	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 makes	nsubj
2	makes	make	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	storks	stork	NOUN	Number=Plur	2 makes	obj
4	lighter	light	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	2 makes	xcomp

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	make	present	Flapping	storks				light property	vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset stork=Product

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/375-white-storks-ukraine-s-favourite-birds-and-their-journey-to-africa/t8/