Test 5 · ★★ · Who eats whom: predators, prey, scavengers and decomposers

What would happen to a field full of cow pats if there were no dung beetles or other decomposers?

Mova's choice: option 3 · The right answer: option 3 · right ✓ · Who acts: dung beetles · What happens: happen, be

This is test 5 · ★★ of lesson 47 «Who eats whom: predators, prey, scavengers and decomposers» 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	What	what	PRON	PronType=Int	3 happen	nsubj
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 happen	aux
3	happen	happen	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	to	to	ADP	_	6 field	case
5	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	6 field	det
6	field	field	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 happen	obl
7	full	full	ADJ	Degree=Pos	6 field	amod
8	of	of	ADP	_	10 pats	case
9	cow	cow	NOUN	Number=Sing	10 pats	compound
10	pats	pat	NOUN	Number=Plur	7 full	obl
11	if	if	SCONJ	_	13 were	mark
12	there	there	PRON	PronType=Dem	13 were	expl
13	were	be	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 happen	advcl
14	no	no	DET	PronType=Neg	16 beetles	det
15	dung	dung	NOUN	Number=Sing	16 beetles	compound
16	beetles	beetle	NOUN	Number=Plur	13 were	nsubj
17	or	or	CCONJ	_	19 decomposers	cc
18	other	other	ADJ	Degree=Pos	19 decomposers	amod
19	decomposers	decomposer	NOUN	Number=Plur	16 beetles	conj
20	?	?	PUNCT	_	3 happen	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	happen	would						to a field	vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
2	be a condition, not said to happen	past	no dung beetles or other decomposers			there			vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=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

The cows would stop making dung

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	2 cows	det
2	cows	cow	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 stop	nsubj
3	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	4 stop	aux
4	stop	stop	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
5	making	make	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	4 stop	xcomp
6	dung	dung	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 making	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	stop	would	the cows						vn stop-55.4-1-1 «NP V S_ING»: agent=Affector clause=Eventuality
2	make	gerund	the cows not said here	dung					vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset dung=Product

Option 2

The dung would turn into fresh green grass by itself

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	2 dung	det
2	dung	dung	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 turn	nsubj
3	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	4 turn	aux
4	turn	turn	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
5	into	into	ADP	_	8 grass	case
6	fresh	fresh	ADJ	Degree=Pos	8 grass	amod
7	green	green	ADJ	Degree=Pos	8 grass	amod
8	grass	grass	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 turn	obl
9	by	by	ADP	_	10 itself	case
10	itself	itself	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs Reflex=Yes	4 turn	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	turn	would	the dung			fresh green grass		by dung	vn roll-51.3.1 «NP.theme V PP.source PP.trajectory PP.destination»: agent=Theme into grass=Source by itself=Trajectory

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

The dung would pile up and flies would breed in it

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	2 dung	det
2	dung	dung	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 pile	nsubj
3	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	4 pile	aux
4	pile	pile	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
5	up	up	ADP	_	4 pile	compound:prt
6	and	and	CCONJ	_	9 breed	cc
7	flies	fly	NOUN	Number=Plur	9 breed	nsubj
8	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	9 breed	aux
9	breed	breed	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	4 pile	conj
10	in	in	ADP	_	11 it	case
11	it	it	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	9 breed	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	pile up	would	the dung						vn spray-9.7-1-1 «NP V PP.destination»: agent=Theme
2	breed	would	flies			dung			tree rules

Option 4

Nothing, dung just vanishes

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Nothing	nothing	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Neg	5 vanishes	nsubj
2	,	,	PUNCT	_	3 dung	punct
3	dung	dung	NOUN	Number=Sing	1 Nothing	conj
4	just	just	ADV	_	5 vanishes	advmod
5	vanishes	vanish	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	vanish	present	Nothing						vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme

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/47-predators-prey-scavengers-decomposers/t5/