Test 10 · Giants people saw: Steller's sea cow, Haast's eagle, giant…

Why are big, slow animals often the first to vanish when things change?

Mova's choice: option 2 · The right answer: option 3 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: things · What happens: be, vanish, change

This is test 10 of lesson 386 «Giants people saw: Steller's sea cow, Haast's eagle, giant lemurs and elephant birds» 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 big	advmod
2	are	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	3 big	cop
3	big	big	ADJ	Degree=Pos	root	root
4	,	,	PUNCT	_	6 animals	punct
5	slow	slow	ADJ	Degree=Pos	6 animals	amod
6	animals	animal	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 big	conj
7	often	often	ADV	_	9 first	advmod
8	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	9 first	det
9	first	first	ADJ	Degree=Pos NumForm=Word NumType=Ord	6 animals	amod
10	to	to	PART	_	11 vanish	mark
11	vanish	vanish	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	9 first	xcomp
12	when	when	SCONJ	_	14 change	mark
13	things	thing	NOUN	Number=Plur	14 change	nsubj
14	change	change	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	11 vanish	advcl
15	?	?	PUNCT	_	3 big	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	other	roles by
1	is	present		big property	tree rules
2	vanish	to-infinitive			vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
3	change	present	things		vn dress-41.1.1-1-1 «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

They are invisible to hunters

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	3 invisible	nsubj
2	are	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	3 invisible	cop
3	invisible	invisible	ADJ	Degree=Pos	root	root
4	to	to	ADP	_	5 hunters	case
5	hunters	hunter	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 invisible	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is	present	They					to hunters; invisible property	tree rules

Option 2 · ← Mova's choice

They live too long, so they get old and tired and stop eating

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	2 live	nsubj
2	live	live	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	too	too	ADV	_	4 long	advmod
4	long	long	ADV	Degree=Pos	2 live	advmod
5	,	,	PUNCT	_	8 get	punct
6	so	so	ADV	_	8 get	advmod
7	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	8 get	nsubj
8	get	get	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	2 live	advcl
9	old	old	ADJ	Degree=Pos	8 get	xcomp
10	and	and	CCONJ	_	11 tired	cc
11	tired	tired	ADJ	Degree=Pos	9 old	conj
12	and	and	CCONJ	_	13 stop	cc
13	stop	stop	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	2 live	conj
14	eating	eat	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	13 stop	xcomp

#	verb	tense, mood	who	other	roles by
1	live	present	They	long property	vn exist-47.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
2	get	present	they	old property	vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V S_ING»: agent=Experiencer
3	stop	present	They not said here		vn stop-55.4-1-1 «NP V S_ING»: agent=Affector clause=Eventuality
4	eat	gerund	They not said here		vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent

Option 3 · ✓ the right answer

They have few babies and cannot escape or recover fast

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	2 have	nsubj
2	have	have	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	few	few	ADJ	Degree=Pos	4 babies	amod
4	babies	baby	NOUN	Number=Plur	2 have	obj
5	and	and	CCONJ	_	8 escape	cc
6	can	can	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	8 escape	aux
7	not	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	8 escape	advmod
8	escape	escape	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	2 have	conj
9	or	or	CCONJ	_	10 recover	cc
10	recover	recover	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	8 escape	conj
11	fast	fast	ADV	Degree=Pos	10 recover	advmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	other	roles by
1	have	present	They	few babies		vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent baby=Patient
2	not escape	can	They not said here			vn escape-51.1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
3	recover	infinitive	They not said here		fast property	vn obtain-13.5.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent

Option 4

They eat too little

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	2 eat	nsubj
2	eat	eat	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	too	too	ADV	_	4 little	advmod
4	little	little	ADJ	Degree=Pos	2 eat	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	eat	present	They	little					vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent little=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/386-giants-people-saw-steller-s-sea-cow-haast-s-eagle-giant-lemurs-and-elephant-birds/t10/