Test 4 · How animals hide: camouflage and mimicry

What would happen to a white arctic fox if the snow melted early in spring?

Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 2 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: snow · What happens: happen, melt

This is test 4 of lesson 51 «How animals hide: camouflage and mimicry» 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	_	8 fox	case
5	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	8 fox	det
6	white	white	ADJ	Degree=Pos	8 fox	amod
7	arctic	arctic	ADJ	Degree=Pos	8 fox	amod
8	fox	fox	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 happen	obl
9	if	if	SCONJ	_	12 melted	mark
10	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	11 snow	det
11	snow	snow	NOUN	Number=Sing	12 melted	nsubj
12	melted	melt	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	3 happen	advcl
13	early	early	ADV	Degree=Pos	12 melted	advmod
14	in	in	ADP	_	15 spring	case
15	spring	spring	NOUN	Number=Sing	12 melted	obl
16	?	?	PUNCT	_	3 happen	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	happen	would						to a white arctic fox	vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
2	melt a condition, not said to happen	participle	the snow				spring	early property	vn other_cos-45.4-1 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient

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 would dig into the ice to hide

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 dig	nsubj
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 dig	aux
3	dig	dig	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	into	into	ADP	_	6 ice	case
5	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	6 ice	det
6	ice	ice	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 dig	obl
7	to	to	PART	_	8 hide	mark
8	hide	hide	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	3 dig	advcl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	dig	would	It					into the ice	vn poke-19-1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.patient»: agent=Agent into ice=Patient
2	hide	to-infinitive							vn concealment-16-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent

Option 2 · ✓ the right answer

It would stand out on brown ground until its summer coat grew

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 stand	nsubj
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 stand	aux
3	stand	stand	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	out	out	ADP	_	3 stand	compound:prt
5	on	on	ADP	_	7 ground	case
6	brown	brown	ADJ	Degree=Pos	7 ground	amod
7	ground	ground	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 stand	obl
8	until	until	SCONJ	_	12 grew	mark
9	its	its	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	11 coat	nmod:poss
10	summer	summer	NOUN	Number=Sing	11 coat	compound
11	coat	coat	NOUN	Number=Sing	12 grew	nsubj
12	grew	grow	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 stand	advcl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	stand out	would	It			brown ground			vn assuming_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent on ground=Location
2	grow	past	ground's summer coat						vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme

Option 3

It would be safer than ever

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 safer	nsubj
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	4 safer	aux
3	be	be	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	4 safer	cop
4	safer	safe	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	root	root
5	than	than	ADP	_	6 ever	case
6	ever	ever	ADV	PronType=Ind	4 safer	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is	would	It					safe property	tree rules

Option 4

It would turn brown overnight, as soon as it saw the ground

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 turn	nsubj
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 turn	aux
3	turn	turn	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	brown	brown	ADJ	Degree=Pos	3 turn	xcomp
5	overnight	overnight	ADV	_	3 turn	advmod
6	,	,	PUNCT	_	8 soon	punct
7	as	as	ADV	_	8 soon	advmod
8	soon	soon	ADV	Degree=Pos	3 turn	advmod
9	as	as	SCONJ	_	11 saw	mark
10	it	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	11 saw	nsubj
11	saw	see	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	8 soon	advcl
12	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	13 ground	det
13	ground	ground	NOUN	Number=Sing	11 saw	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	turn	would	It					brown, overnight, soon property	vn roll-51.3.1 «NP.theme V»: agent=Theme
2	see	past	it	the ground					vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer ground=Stimulus

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/51-how-animals-hide/t4/