Test 11 · ★★ · China's great rivers: the finless porpoise, the lost baiji…

Why might noisy ships harm a porpoise even if they never hit it?

Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 3 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: noisy ships, ships · What happens: harm, not hit · To what, where: porpoise

This is test 11 · ★★ of lesson 379 «China's great rivers: the finless porpoise, the lost baiji, Chinese alligators and sturgeon» 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 noisy	advmod
2	might	might	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 noisy	aux
3	noisy	noisy	ADJ	Degree=Pos	4 ships	amod
4	ships	ship	NOUN	Number=Plur	5 harm	nsubj
5	harm	harm	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
6	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	7 porpoise	det
7	porpoise	porpoise	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 harm	obj
8	even	even	ADV	_	12 hit	advmod
9	if	if	SCONJ	_	12 hit	mark
10	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	12 hit	nsubj
11	never	never	ADV	PronType=Neg	12 hit	advmod
12	hit	hit	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	5 harm	advcl
13	it	it	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	12 hit	obj
14	?	?	PUNCT	_	5 harm	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	harm	present	noisy ships	a porpoise					vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Stimulus porpoise=Experiencer
2	not hit a condition, not said to happen	past	ships = ship	porpoise					vn contiguous_location-47.8-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme it=Co-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 · ← Mova's choice

Noise makes the river water too warm

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Noise	noise	NOUN	Number=Sing	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	5 water	det
4	river	river	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 water	compound
5	water	water	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 makes	obj
6	too	too	ADV	_	2 makes	advmod
7	warm	warm	ADJ	Degree=Pos	2 makes	xcomp

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	make	present	Noise	the river water				warm property	vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset water=Product

Option 2

Porpoises hate the colour of ships

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Porpoises	porpoise	NOUN	Number=Plur	2 hate	nsubj
2	hate	hate	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	4 colour	det
4	colour	colour	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 hate	obj
5	of	of	ADP	_	6 ships	case
6	ships	ship	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 colour	nmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	hate	present	Porpoises	the colour of ships					vn admire-31.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer colour=Stimulus

Option 3 · ✓ the right answer

It clicks to find fish, and engine noise can drown out the echoes

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 clicks	nsubj
2	clicks	click	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	to	to	PART	_	4 find	mark
4	find	find	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	2 clicks	xcomp
5	fish	fish	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 find	obj
6	,	,	PUNCT	_	11 drown	punct
7	and	and	CCONJ	_	11 drown	cc
8	engine	engine	NOUN	Number=Sing	9 noise	compound
9	noise	noise	NOUN	Number=Sing	11 drown	nsubj
10	can	can	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	11 drown	aux
11	drown	drown	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	2 clicks	advcl
12	out	out	ADP	_	11 drown	compound:prt
13	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	14 echoes	det
14	echoes	echo	NOUN	Number=Plur	11 drown	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	roles by
1	click	present	It		tree rules
2	find	to-infinitive		fish	vn discover-84 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent fish=Topic
3	drown out	can	engine noise	the echoes	vn poison-42.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent echo=Patient

Option 4

Ships drink up the river

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Ships	ship	NOUN	Number=Plur	2 drink	nsubj
2	drink	drink	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	up	up	ADP	_	2 drink	compound:prt
4	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	5 river	det
5	river	river	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 drink	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	drink up	present	Ships	the river					vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent river=Patient

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/379-china-s-great-rivers-the-finless-porpoise-the-lost-baiji-chinese-alligators-and-sturgeon/t11/