Test 4 · ★★★ · How animals talk

What would happen if you wiped your finger across a busy ant trail?

Mova's choice: option 2 · The right answer: option 4 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: you · What happens: happen, wipe · To what, where: finger, busy ant trail

This is test 4 · ★★★ of lesson 50 «How animals talk» 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	if	if	SCONJ	_	6 wiped	mark
5	you	you	PRON	Case=Nom Person=2 PronType=Prs	6 wiped	nsubj
6	wiped	wipe	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=2 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 happen	advcl
7	your	your	PRON	Case=Gen Person=2 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	8 finger	nmod:poss
8	finger	finger	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 wiped	obj
9	across	across	ADP	_	13 trail	case
10	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	13 trail	det
11	busy	busy	ADJ	Degree=Pos	13 trail	amod
12	ant	ant	NOUN	Number=Sing	13 trail	compound
13	trail	trail	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 wiped	obl
14	?	?	PUNCT	_	3 happen	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	happen	would							vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
2	wipe a condition, not said to happen	past	you	your finger		a busy ant trail			vn funnel-9.3-1 «NP V NP PP.trajectory»: agent=Agent finger=Theme across trail=Trajectory

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 ants would follow your finger home

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	2 ants	det
2	ants	ant	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 follow	nsubj
3	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	4 follow	aux
4	follow	follow	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
5	your	your	PRON	Case=Gen Person=2 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	6 finger	nmod:poss
6	finger	finger	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 follow	obj
7	home	home	ADV	_	4 follow	advmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	follow	would	the ants	your finger				home property	vn chase-51.6 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent finger=Theme

Option 2 · ← Mova's choice

Nothing, ants follow by sight

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Nothing	nothing	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Neg	3 ants	compound
2	,	,	PUNCT	_	1 Nothing	punct
3	ants	ant	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 follow	nsubj
4	follow	follow	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
5	by	by	ADP	_	6 sight	case
6	sight	sight	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 follow	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	follow	present	Nothing ants					by sight	vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V PP»: agent=Theme by sight=Location

Option 3

The ants would all turn round, go back to the nest and never come out again

The tree, 16 words

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	2 ants	det
2	ants	ant	NOUN	Number=Plur	5 turn	nsubj
3	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	5 turn	aux
4	all	all	ADV	_	5 turn	advmod
5	turn	turn	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
6	round	round	ADV	_	5 turn	advmod
7	,	,	PUNCT	_	8 go	punct
8	go	go	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	5 turn	conj
9	back	back	ADV	_	8 go	advmod
10	to	to	ADP	_	12 nest	case
11	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	12 nest	det
12	nest	nest	NOUN	Number=Sing	8 go	obl
13	and	and	CCONJ	_	15 come	cc
14	never	never	ADV	PronType=Neg	15 come	advmod
15	come	come	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	5 turn	conj
16	out	out	ADV	_	15 come	advmod
17	again	again	ADV	_	15 come	advmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	when	other	roles by
1	turn round	would	the ants		all, round property	vn roll-51.3.1 «NP.theme V»: agent=Theme
2	go back	infinitive	the ants not said here		to the nest result	vn convert-26.6.2 «NP V S_ING»: agent=Patient to nest=Result
3	not come out	infinitive	the ants not said here	again	out property	vn become-109.1 «NP V ADJ»: agent=Patient

Option 4 · ✓ the right answer

The ants would get confused there until they found the scent again

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	2 ants	det
2	ants	ant	NOUN	Number=Plur	5 confused	nsubj:pass
3	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	5 confused	aux
4	get	get	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	5 confused	aux:pass
5	confused	confuse	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	root	root
6	there	there	ADV	PronType=Dem	5 confused	advmod
7	until	until	SCONJ	_	9 found	mark
8	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	9 found	nsubj
9	found	find	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	5 confused	advcl
10	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	11 scent	det
11	scent	scent	NOUN	Number=Sing	9 found	obj
12	again	again	ADV	_	9 found	advmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	confuse	would · passive		the ants		there			vn amalgamate-22.2-2 «NP V NP»: subject=Patient
2	find	past	ants = ant	the scent			again		vn discover-84 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent scent=Topic

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/50-how-animals-talk/t4/