Test 10 · The savanna: grass, trees and the great herds

«shut up and tell me why the giraffe's neck's so long» Which is the best answer?

Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 2 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: you, neck · What happens: shut up, tell, be · To what, where: me, best answer · Speech: someone speaks here

This is test 10 of lesson 4 «The savanna: grass, trees and the great herds» 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	«	«	PUNCT	_	2 shut	punct
2	shut	shut	VERB	Mood=Imp VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	up	up	ADP	_	2 shut	compound:prt
4	and	and	CCONJ	_	5 tell	cc
5	tell	tell	VERB	Mood=Imp VerbForm=Fin	2 shut	conj
6	me	I	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs	5 tell	iobj
7	why	why	ADV	PronType=Int	14 long	advmod
8	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	9 giraffe	det
9	giraffe	giraffe	NOUN	Number=Sing	11 neck	nmod:poss
10	's	's	PART	_	9 giraffe	case
11	neck	neck	NOUN	Number=Sing	14 long	nsubj
12	's	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	14 long	cop
13	so	so	ADV	_	14 long	advmod
14	long	long	ADV	Degree=Pos	20 answer	advmod
15	»	»	PUNCT	_	14 long	punct
16	Which	which	PRON	PronType=Rel	20 answer	nsubj
17	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	20 answer	cop
18	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	20 answer	det
19	best	good	ADJ	Degree=Sup	20 answer	amod
20	answer	answer	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 tell	obj
21	?	?	PUNCT	_	2 shut	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	other	roles by
1	shut up in a quote	imperative	you not said here				vn subjugate-42.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent
2	tell speech: assert in a quote	infinitive	you not said here		me		vn transfer_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent i=Recipient
3	is in a quote	present	the giraffe's neck			long property	tree rules
4	be speech: assert	present		the best answer			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 is long so the giraffe can sleep standing up without falling over

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	3 long	nsubj
2	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	3 long	cop
3	long	long	ADJ	Degree=Pos	root	root
4	so	so	SCONJ	_	8 sleep	mark
5	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	6 giraffe	det
6	giraffe	giraffe	NOUN	Number=Sing	8 sleep	nsubj
7	can	can	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	8 sleep	aux
8	sleep	sleep	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	3 long	advcl
9	standing	stand	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	8 sleep	xcomp
10	up	up	ADP	_	9 standing	compound:prt
11	without	without	SCONJ	_	12 falling	mark
12	falling	fall	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	9 standing	advcl
13	over	over	ADV	_	12 falling	advmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	other	roles by
1	is	present	It	long property	tree rules
2	sleep	can	the giraffe		tree rules
3	stand up	gerund	the giraffe not said here		vn assuming_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent
4	fall over	gerund	the giraffe not said here	over property	vn occur-48.3 «NP V»: agent=Theme

Option 2 · ✓ the right answer

It reaches leaves high up, where other animals cannot compete

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 reaches	nsubj
2	reaches	reach	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	leaves	leaf	NOUN	Number=Plur	2 reaches	obj
4	high	high	ADV	Degree=Pos	5 up	advmod
5	up	up	ADV	_	2 reaches	advmod
6	,	,	PUNCT	_	12 compete	punct
7	where	where	ADV	PronType=Rel	12 compete	advmod
8	other	other	ADJ	Degree=Pos	9 animals	amod
9	animals	animal	NOUN	Number=Plur	12 compete	nsubj
10	can	can	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	12 compete	aux
11	not	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	12 compete	advmod
12	compete	compete	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	2 reaches	parataxis

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	reach	present	It	leaves					vn body_motion-49.2-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: agent=Agent leaf=Theme
2	not compete	can	other animals						vn battle-36.4 «NP V»: agent=Agent

Option 3

It helps the giraffe swim across rivers

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 helps	nsubj
2	helps	help	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	4 giraffe	det
4	giraffe	giraffe	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 swim	nsubj
5	swim	swim	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	2 helps	xcomp
6	across	across	ADP	_	7 rivers	case
7	rivers	river	NOUN	Number=Plur	5 swim	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	help	present	It						vn help-72.1-1-1 «NP V NP S_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Theme
2	swim	present	the giraffe			rivers			vn run-51.3.2-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme across river=Trajectory

Option 4

It is for fighting crocodiles

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	4 fighting	nsubj
2	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	4 fighting	aux
3	for	for	SCONJ	_	4 fighting	mark
4	fighting	fight	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	root	root
5	crocodiles	crocodile	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 fighting	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	fight	present · progressive	It	crocodiles					vn battle-36.4-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent crocodile=Co-Agent

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/4-the-savanna/t10/