Test 9 · How animals defend themselves

Which is true about the opossum playing dead?

Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 4 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: opossum · What happens: be, play

This is test 9 of lesson 53 «How animals defend themselves» 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	Which	which	PRON	PronType=Rel	3 true	nsubj
2	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	3 true	cop
3	true	true	ADJ	Degree=Pos	root	root
4	about	about	ADP	_	6 opossum	case
5	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	6 opossum	det
6	opossum	opossum	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 true	obl
7	playing	play	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	6 opossum	acl
8	dead	dead	ADJ	Degree=Pos	7 playing	xcomp
9	?	?	PUNCT	_	3 true	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is	present						about the opossum; true property	tree rules
2	play	gerund	the opossum not said here					dead property	vn performance-26.7-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent

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 can play dead for only one second

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 play	nsubj
2	can	can	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 play	aux
3	play	play	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	dead	dead	ADJ	Degree=Pos	3 play	xcomp
5	for	for	ADP	_	8 second	case
6	only	only	ADV	_	7 one	advmod
7	one	one	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	8 second	nummod
8	second	second	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 play	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	play	can	It				second	dead property	vn performance-26.7-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent

Option 2

It turns bright yellow while it does it

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 turns	nsubj
2	turns	turn	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	bright	bright	ADJ	Degree=Pos	4 yellow	amod
4	yellow	yellow	ADJ	Degree=Pos	2 turns	xcomp
5	while	while	SCONJ	_	7 does	mark
6	it	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	7 does	nsubj
7	does	do	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	2 turns	advcl
8	it	it	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	7 does	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	turn	present	It					yellow property	vn roll-51.3.1 «NP.theme V»: agent=Theme
2	do	present	it	it					vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Eventuality

Option 3

It chooses to act dead to make the people watching laugh

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 chooses	nsubj
2	chooses	choose	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	to	to	PART	_	4 act	mark
4	act	act	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	2 chooses	xcomp
5	dead	dead	ADJ	Degree=Pos	4 act	xcomp
6	to	to	PART	_	7 make	mark
7	make	make	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	4 act	advcl
8	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	9 people	det
9	people	people	NOUN	Number=Plur	7 make	obj
10	watching	watch	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	9 people	acl
11	laugh	laugh	NOUN	Number=Sing	10 watching	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	other	roles by
1	choose	present	It			tree rules
2	act	to-infinitive			dead property	vn act-114-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent
3	make	to-infinitive		the people		vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset people=Product
4	watch	gerund	the people not said here	laugh		vn assessment-34.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent laugh=Theme

Option 4 · ✓ the right answer

It is more like fainting from fear than acting

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	5 fainting	nsubj
2	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	5 fainting	aux
3	more	more	ADV	Degree=Cmp	5 fainting	advmod
4	like	like	SCONJ	_	5 fainting	mark
5	fainting	faint	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	root	root
6	from	from	ADP	_	7 fear	case
7	fear	fear	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 fainting	obl
8	than	than	SCONJ	_	9 acting	mark
9	acting	act	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	5 fainting	advcl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	faint	present · progressive	It					from fear	vn change_bodily_state-40.8.4 «NP V PP.stimulus»: agent=Experiencer from fear=Stimulus
2	act	gerund							vn act-114-1-1 «NP V»: agent=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/53-how-animals-defend-themselves/t9/