Exam question 2 · Andersen's Tales, The Story of the Year: sparrows, Winter…

With reference to the passage, what is the sparrows' principal grievance concerning the newly commenced year, as expressed in their own words?

Mova's choice: option 2 · The right answer: option 1 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: passage, principal grievance, sparrows · What happens: be, concern, commence, express, word · To what, where: principal grievance, own words

This is exam question 2 of lesson 1031 «Andersen's Tales, The Story of the Year: sparrows, Winter and the two children of Spring» of the books course of Mova's primary school, asked in stiff, formal language. 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	With	with	ADP	_	2 reference	case
2	reference	reference	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root
3	to	to	ADP	_	5 passage	case
4	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	5 passage	det
5	passage	passage	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 reference	nmod
6	,	,	PUNCT	_	13 grievance	punct
7	what	what	PRON	PronType=Int	13 grievance	nsubj
8	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	13 grievance	cop
9	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	10 sparrows	det
10	sparrows	sparrow	NOUN	Number=Plur	13 grievance	nmod:poss
11	'	's	PART	_	10 sparrows	case
12	principal	principal	ADJ	Degree=Pos	13 grievance	amod
13	grievance	grievance	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 passage	conj
14	concerning	concern	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	13 grievance	acl
15	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	18 year	det
16	newly	newly	ADV	_	17 commenced	advmod
17	commenced	commence	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	18 year	amod
18	year	year	NOUN	Number=Sing	14 concerning	obl:unmarked
19	,	,	PUNCT	_	21 expressed	punct
20	as	as	SCONJ	_	21 expressed	mark
21	expressed	express	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	14 concerning	advcl
22	in	in	ADP	_	25 words	case
23	their	their	PRON	Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	25 words	nmod:poss
24	own	own	ADJ	Degree=Pos	25 words	amod
25	words	word	NOUN	Number=Plur	21 expressed	obl
26	?	?	PUNCT	_	2 reference	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is a	present	the passage and the sparrows's principal grievance	the sparrows's principal grievance				tree rules
2	concern	gerund	the sparrows's principal grievance not said here			year		vn amuse-31.1 «NP V ADV-Middle»: agent=Experiencer
3	commence	participle					newly property	vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP.eventuality V»: agent=Eventuality
4	express	participle	the sparrows's principal grievance not said here		sparrows's own words			vn reflexive_appearance-48.1.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent
5	word		sparrows = sparrow					nom word «communication transitive»: poss=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 · ✓ the right answer

That the new year is no better, and indeed worse, than the old one

The tree, 14 words

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	That	that	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Dem	7 better	nsubj
2	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	4 year	det
3	new	new	ADJ	Degree=Pos	4 year	amod
4	year	year	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 better	nsubj
5	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	7 better	cop
6	no	no	ADV	_	7 better	advmod
7	better	good	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	root	root
8	,	,	PUNCT	_	11 worse	punct
9	and	and	CCONJ	_	11 worse	cc
10	indeed	indeed	ADV	_	11 worse	advmod
11	worse	bad	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	7 better	conj
12	,	,	PUNCT	_	16 one	punct
13	than	than	ADP	_	16 one	case
14	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	16 one	det
15	old	old	ADJ	Degree=Pos	16 one	amod
16	one	one	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 better	advcl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	not is	present	That					good property	tree rules
2	be		That not said here					indeed property	tree rules

Option 2 · ← Mova's choice

That the new year offers the same hunger and cold that the old year brought

The tree, 15 words

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	That	that	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Dem	5 offers	nsubj
2	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	4 year	det
3	new	new	ADJ	Degree=Pos	4 year	amod
4	year	year	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 offers	nsubj
5	offers	offer	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
6	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	8 hunger	det
7	same	same	ADJ	Degree=Pos	8 hunger	amod
8	hunger	hunger	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 offers	obj
9	and	and	CCONJ	_	10 cold	cc
10	cold	cold	ADJ	Degree=Pos	8 hunger	conj
11	that	that	SCONJ	_	15 brought	mark
12	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	14 year	det
13	old	old	ADJ	Degree=Pos	14 year	amod
14	year	year	NOUN	Number=Sing	15 brought	obl:unmarked
15	brought	bring	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	10 cold	advcl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	offer	present	That	the same hunger					vn future_having-13.3 «NP V NP.theme (PP)»: agent=Agent hunger=Theme
2	bring	participle	That not said here				year		vn bring-11.3-1 «NP V NP together»: agent=Agent

Option 3

Too much snow

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Too	too	ADV	_	2 much	advmod
2	much	much	ADJ	Degree=Pos	3 snow	amod
3	snow	snow	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root

The frames reader finds no event or fact in this sentence.

Option 4

That the new year is no different from the year that has just gone by

The tree, 15 words

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	That	that	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Dem	7 different	nsubj
2	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	4 year	det
3	new	new	ADJ	Degree=Pos	4 year	amod
4	year	year	NOUN	Number=Sing	1 That	obl:unmarked
5	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	7 different	cop
6	no	no	DET	PronType=Neg	7 different	det
7	different	different	ADJ	Degree=Pos	root	root
8	from	from	ADP	_	10 year	case
9	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	10 year	det
10	year	year	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 different	obl
11	that	that	PRON	PronType=Rel	14 gone	nsubj
12	has	have	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	14 gone	aux
13	just	just	ADV	_	14 gone	advmod
14	gone	go	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part	10 year	acl:relcl
15	by	by	ADP	_	14 gone	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is	present	That				year	different property	tree rules
2	go by	present · perfect	the year						vn disappearance-48.2-1 «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.

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