Test 7 · How plants grow: seeds, light, water and air

Why might a plant that lives in poor soil start eating insects?

Mova's choice: option 4 · The right answer: option 2 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: plant · What happens: live, start, eat · To what, where: poor soil, insects

This is test 7 of lesson 56 «How plants grow: seeds, light, water and air» 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	Why	why	ADV	PronType=Int	10 start	advmod
2	might	might	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	10 start	aux
3	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	4 plant	det
4	plant	plant	NOUN	Number=Sing	10 start	nsubj
5	that	that	PRON	PronType=Rel	6 lives	nsubj
6	lives	live	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	4 plant	acl:relcl
7	in	in	ADP	_	9 soil	case
8	poor	poor	ADJ	Degree=Pos	9 soil	amod
9	soil	soil	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 lives	obl
10	start	start	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
11	eating	eat	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	10 start	xcomp
12	insects	insect	NOUN	Number=Plur	11 eating	obj
13	?	?	PUNCT	_	10 start	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	roles by
1	live	present	a plant		poor soil	vn lodge-46 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in soil=Location
2	start	might	a plant			vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S_ING»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality
3	eat	gerund	a plant not said here	insects		vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent insect=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

Because it cannot get water

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Because	because	SCONJ	_	5 get	mark
2	it	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	5 get	nsubj
3	can	can	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	5 get	aux
4	not	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	5 get	advmod
5	get	get	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
6	water	water	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 get	obj

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

Option 2 · ✓ the right answer

To get nitrogen the soil cannot give it

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	To	to	PART	_	2 get	mark
2	get	get	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	8 give	advcl
3	nitrogen	nitrogen	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 get	obj
4	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	5 soil	det
5	soil	soil	NOUN	Number=Sing	8 give	nsubj
6	can	can	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	8 give	aux
7	not	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	8 give	advmod
8	give	give	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
9	it	it	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	8 give	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	get	to-infinitive	the soil not said here	nitrogen					vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer nitrogen=Stimulus
2	not give	can	the soil	nitrogen					vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Theme

Option 3

To stop insects eating it first

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	To	to	PART	_	2 stop	mark
2	stop	stop	VERB	Mood=Imp VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	insects	insect	NOUN	Number=Plur	2 stop	obj
4	eating	eat	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	3 insects	acl
5	it	it	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	4 eating	obj
6	first	first	ADV	NumForm=Word NumType=Ord	2 stop	advmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	stop	to-infinitive		insects				first property	vn stop-55.4-1-1 «NP V NP.eventuality»: agent=Subeventuality insect=Eventuality
2	eat	gerund	insects not said here	it					vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Patient

Option 4 · ← Mova's choice

Because it is too lazy to make its own sugar from light

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Because	because	SCONJ	_	5 lazy	mark
2	it	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	5 lazy	nsubj
3	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	5 lazy	cop
4	too	too	ADV	_	5 lazy	advmod
5	lazy	lazy	ADJ	Degree=Pos	root	root
6	to	to	PART	_	7 make	mark
7	make	make	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	5 lazy	advcl
8	its	its	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	10 sugar	nmod:poss
9	own	own	ADJ	Degree=Pos	10 sugar	amod
10	sugar	sugar	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 make	obj
11	from	from	ADP	_	12 light	case
12	light	light	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 make	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is	present	it					lazy property	tree rules
2	make	to-infinitive		its own sugar		light			vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V PP»: agent=Asset sugar=Product from light=Material

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/56-how-plants-grow/t7/