Test 12 · ★★★ · Trees

Why might a baobab drop its leaves in the dry season?

Mova's choice: option 4 · The right answer: option 4 · right ✓ · Who acts: baobab · What happens: drop · To what, where: leaves

This is test 12 · ★★★ of lesson 60 «Trees» 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	5 drop	advmod
2	might	might	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	5 drop	aux
3	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	4 baobab	det
4	baobab	baobab	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 drop	nsubj
5	drop	drop	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
6	its	its	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	7 leaves	nmod:poss
7	leaves	leaf	NOUN	Number=Plur	5 drop	obj
8	in	in	ADP	_	11 season	case
9	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	11 season	det
10	dry	dry	ADJ	Degree=Pos	11 season	amod
11	season	season	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 drop	obl
12	?	?	PUNCT	_	5 drop	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	drop	might	a baobab	baobab's leaves			season		vn put_direction-9.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent leaf=Theme

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 the leaves are too heavy

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Because	because	SCONJ	_	6 heavy	mark
2	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	3 leaves	det
3	leaves	leaf	NOUN	Number=Plur	6 heavy	nsubj
4	are	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	6 heavy	cop
5	too	too	ADV	_	6 heavy	advmod
6	heavy	heavy	ADJ	Degree=Pos	root	root

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is	present	the leaves					heavy property	tree rules

Option 2

Because the animals have eaten them all

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Because	because	SCONJ	_	5 eaten	mark
2	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	3 animals	det
3	animals	animal	NOUN	Number=Plur	5 eaten	nsubj:pass
4	have	have	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	5 eaten	aux
5	eaten	eat	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	root	root
6	them	they	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	5 eaten	obj
7	all	all	DET	PronType=Tot	6 them	nmod:unmarked

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	eat	present · perfect · passive		the animals					tree rules

Option 3

To let more sunlight in to dry out and harden the trunk

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	To	to	PART	_	2 let	mark
2	let	let	VERB	Mood=Imp VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	more	more	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	4 sunlight	amod
4	sunlight	sunlight	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 let	obj
5	in	in	SCONJ	_	7 dry	mark
6	to	to	PART	_	7 dry	mark
7	dry	dry	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	2 let	advcl
8	out	out	ADP	_	7 dry	compound:prt
9	and	and	CCONJ	_	10 harden	cc
10	harden	harden	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	7 dry	conj
11	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	12 trunk	det
12	trunk	trunk	NOUN	Number=Sing	10 harden	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	what, whom	roles by
1	let	to-infinitive	more sunlight	vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent sunlight=Theme
2	dry out	to-infinitive		vn other_cos-45.4-1 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient
3	harden	infinitive	the trunk	vn other_cos-45.4 «NP V NP.patient»: agent=Agent trunk=Patient

Option 4 · ← Mova's choice · ✓ the right answer

To stop losing water through its leaves when there is no rain

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	losing	lose	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	2 stop	xcomp
4	water	water	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 losing	obj
5	through	through	ADP	_	7 leaves	case
6	its	its	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	7 leaves	nmod:poss
7	leaves	leaf	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 losing	obl
8	when	when	ADV	PronType=Int	10 is	advmod
9	there	there	PRON	PronType=Dem	10 is	expl
10	is	be	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	3 losing	advcl
11	no	no	DET	PronType=Neg	12 rain	det
12	rain	rain	NOUN	Number=Sing	10 is	nsubj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	roles by
1	stop	to-infinitive				vn stop-55.4-1-1 «NP V S_ING»: agent=Affector clause=Eventuality
2	lose	gerund		water	water's leaves	vn succeed-74-3-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent water=Eventuality
3	be	present	no rain		there	vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme

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/60-trees/t12/