Test 4 · ★ · Evolution simply: why living things change over many gener…

What would happen to a bright green caterpillar living on brown bark with many birds around?

Mova's choice: option 3 · The right answer: option 1 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: bright green caterpillar · What happens: happen, live · To what, where: brown bark

This is test 4 · ★ of lesson 73 «Evolution simply: why living things change over many generations» 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 caterpillar	case
5	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	8 caterpillar	det
6	bright	bright	ADJ	Degree=Pos	8 caterpillar	amod
7	green	green	ADJ	Degree=Pos	8 caterpillar	amod
8	caterpillar	caterpillar	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 happen	obl
9	living	live	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	8 caterpillar	acl
10	on	on	ADP	_	12 bark	case
11	brown	brown	ADJ	Degree=Pos	12 bark	amod
12	bark	bark	NOUN	Number=Sing	9 living	obl
13	with	with	ADP	_	15 birds	case
14	many	many	ADJ	Degree=Pos	15 birds	amod
15	birds	bird	NOUN	Number=Plur	9 living	obl
16	around	around	ADV	_	9 living	advmod
17	?	?	PUNCT	_	3 happen	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	happen	would						to a bright green caterpillar	vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
2	live	gerund	a bright green caterpillar not said here			brown bark		with many birds; around property	vn lodge-46 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme with bird=Location

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 right answer

Birds would spot it easily, so fewer green ones would survive

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Birds	bird	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 spot	nsubj
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 spot	aux
3	spot	spot	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	it	it	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	3 spot	obj
5	easily	easily	ADV	_	3 spot	advmod
6	,	,	PUNCT	_	12 survive	punct
7	so	so	ADV	_	12 survive	advmod
8	fewer	few	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	10 ones	amod
9	green	green	ADJ	Degree=Pos	10 ones	amod
10	ones	one	NOUN	Number=Plur	12 survive	nsubj
11	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	12 survive	aux
12	survive	survive	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	3 spot	conj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	spot	would	Birds	it				easily property	vn fill-9.8-1 «NP V NP.destination»: agent=Agent it=Destination
2	survive	would	fewer green ones						vn exist-47.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme

Option 2

It would turn itself brown in a few minutes on purpose 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 turn	nsubj
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 turn	aux
3	turn	turn	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	itself	itself	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs Reflex=Yes	3 turn	obj
5	brown	brown	ADJ	Degree=Pos	3 turn	xcomp
6	in	in	ADP	_	9 minutes	case
7	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	9 minutes	det
8	few	few	ADJ	Degree=Pos	9 minutes	amod
9	minutes	minute	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 turn	obl
10	on	on	ADP	_	11 purpose	case
11	purpose	purpose	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 turn	obl
12	to	to	PART	_	13 hide	mark
13	hide	hide	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	3 turn	advcl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	turn	would	It	itself = it		purpose	minute	brown property	vn roll-51.3.1 «NP V ADJ.result»: agent=Theme itself=Result
2	hide	to-infinitive							vn concealment-16-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent

Option 3 · ← Mova's choice

It would grow a hard shell to protect itself

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 grow	nsubj
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 grow	aux
3	grow	grow	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	6 shell	det
5	hard	hard	ADJ	Degree=Pos	6 shell	amod
6	shell	shell	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 grow	obj
7	to	to	PART	_	8 protect	mark
8	protect	protect	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	3 grow	advcl
9	itself	itself	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs Reflex=Yes	8 protect	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	grow	would	It	a hard shell					vn appear-48.1.1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location shell=Theme
2	protect	to-infinitive		shell					vn defend-72.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent itself=Beneficiary

Option 4

Birds never eat caterpillars, so nothing

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Birds	bird	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 eat	nsubj
2	never	never	ADV	PronType=Neg	3 eat	advmod
3	eat	eat	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
4	caterpillars	caterpillar	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 eat	obj
5	,	,	PUNCT	_	7 nothing	punct
6	so	so	ADV	_	7 nothing	advmod
7	nothing	nothing	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Neg	3 eat	conj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	not eat	present	Birds	caterpillars					vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent caterpillar=Patient

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/73-evolution-simply/t4/