Test 10 · ★ · The desert: living with little water

«that cactus is mega tall, must be like 10 years old» What is right?

Mova's choice: option 3 · The right answer: option 1 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: cactus · What happens: be · Speech: someone speaks here

This is test 10 · ★ of lesson 5 «The desert: living with little water» 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	_	6 tall	punct
2	that	that	DET	Number=Sing PronType=Dem	3 cactus	det
3	cactus	cactus	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 tall	nsubj
4	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	6 tall	cop
5	mega	mega	ADV	_	6 tall	advmod
6	tall	tall	ADJ	Degree=Pos	root	root
7	,	,	PUNCT	_	13 old	punct
8	must	must	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	13 old	aux
9	be	be	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	13 old	cop
10	like	like	ADP	_	12 years	case
11	10	10	NUM	NumForm=Digit NumType=Card	12 years	nummod
12	years	year	NOUN	Number=Plur	13 old	obl:unmarked
13	old	old	ADJ	Degree=Pos	6 tall	parataxis
14	»	»	PUNCT	_	13 old	punct
15	What	what	PRON	PronType=Int	17 right	nsubj
16	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	17 right	cop
17	right	right	ADJ	Degree=Pos	6 tall	parataxis
18	?	?	PUNCT	_	6 tall	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	when	other	roles by
1	is in a quote	present	that cactus		mega, tall property	tree rules
2	is in a quote	must		year	old property	tree rules
3	is	present			right property	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 · ✓ the right answer

A tall saguaro is probably over 100 years old, they grow very slowly

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	A	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	3 saguaro	det
2	tall	tall	ADJ	Degree=Pos	3 saguaro	amod
3	saguaro	saguaro	NOUN	Number=Sing	9 old	nsubj
4	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	9 old	cop
5	probably	probably	ADV	_	9 old	advmod
6	over	over	ADV	_	7 100	advmod
7	100	100	NUM	NumForm=Digit NumType=Card	8 years	nummod
8	years	year	NOUN	Number=Plur	9 old	obl:unmarked
9	old	old	ADJ	Degree=Pos	root	root
10	,	,	PUNCT	_	12 grow	punct
11	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	12 grow	nsubj
12	grow	grow	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	9 old	parataxis
13	very	very	ADV	_	14 slowly	advmod
14	slowly	slowly	ADV	_	12 grow	advmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is	present	a tall saguaro				year	old, probably property	tree rules
2	grow	present	they					slowly property	vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme

Option 2

Cactuses never get older than 10

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Cactuses	cactuse	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 get	nsubj
2	never	never	ADV	PronType=Neg	3 get	advmod
3	get	get	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
4	older	old	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	6 10	advmod
5	than	than	ADP	_	4 older	fixed
6	10	10	NUM	NumForm=Digit NumType=Card	3 get	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	not get	present	Cactuses	10					vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer 10=Stimulus

Option 3 · ← Mova's choice

It is probably 1 year old

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	6 old	nsubj
2	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	6 old	cop
3	probably	probably	ADV	_	6 old	advmod
4	1	1	NUM	NumForm=Digit NumType=Card	5 year	nummod
5	year	year	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 old	obl:unmarked
6	old	old	ADJ	Degree=Pos	root	root

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is	present	It				year	old, probably property	tree rules

Option 4

Yes, cactuses grow a metre a year, so it is about ten

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Yes	yes	INTJ	Polarity=Pos	4 grow	discourse
2	,	,	PUNCT	_	1 Yes	punct
3	cactuses	cactuse	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 grow	nsubj
4	grow	grow	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
5	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	6 metre	det
6	metre	metre	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 grow	obj
7	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	8 year	det
8	year	year	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 grow	obl:unmarked
9	,	,	PUNCT	_	14 ten	punct
10	so	so	ADV	_	14 ten	advmod
11	it	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	14 ten	nsubj
12	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	14 ten	cop
13	about	about	ADV	_	14 ten	advmod
14	ten	ten	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	4 grow	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	grow	present	cactuses	a metre			year		vn appear-48.1.1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location metre=Theme
2	is a	present	metre	ten				about property	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.

This page in Markdown → https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/questions/biology/5-the-desert/t10/