Test 12 · ★ · China's plants: bamboo, ginkgo, lotus, tea and rice paddies

Why might roots survive when everything above ground burns?

Mova's choice: option 3 · The right answer: option 4 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: roots · What happens: survive · To what, where: everything burns

This is test 12 · ★ of lesson 380 «China's plants: bamboo, ginkgo, lotus, tea and rice paddies» 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	4 survive	advmod
2	might	might	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	4 survive	aux
3	roots	root	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 survive	nsubj
4	survive	survive	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
5	when	when	ADV	PronType=Int	9 burns	advmod
6	everything	everything	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Tot	9 burns	compound
7	above	above	ADP	_	8 ground	case
8	ground	ground	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 everything	nmod
9	burns	burn	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 survive	obj
10	?	?	PUNCT	_	4 survive	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	survive	might	roots	everything burns					vn exist-47.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme burn=Circumstance

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

Fire cannot reach the dark

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Fire	fire	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 reach	nsubj
2	can	can	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	4 reach	aux
3	not	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	4 reach	advmod
4	reach	reach	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
5	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	6 dark	det
6	dark	dark	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 reach	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	not reach	can	Fire	the dark					vn body_motion-49.2-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: agent=Agent dark=Theme

Option 2

Roots grow back faster than flames

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Roots	root	NOUN	Number=Plur	2 grow	nsubj
2	grow	grow	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	back	back	ADV	_	2 grow	advmod
4	faster	fast	ADV	Degree=Cmp	2 grow	advmod
5	than	than	ADP	_	6 flames	case
6	flames	flame	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 faster	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	grow back	present	Roots					fast property	vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme

Option 3 · ← Mova's choice

Roots are made of stone

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Roots	root	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 made	nsubj:pass
2	are	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	3 made	aux:pass
3	made	make	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	root	root
4	of	of	ADP	_	5 stone	case
5	stone	stone	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 made	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	make	present · passive		Roots				of stone	vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: subject=Product

Option 4 · ✓ the right answer

The soil shields them from the heat

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	2 soil	det
2	soil	soil	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 shields	nsubj
3	shields	shield	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
4	them	they	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	3 shields	obj
5	from	from	ADP	_	7 heat	case
6	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	7 heat	det
7	heat	heat	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 shields	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	shield	present	the soil	them = they		the heat			tree rules

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.

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