Test 4 · ★ · Fionn Tales, Fionn at Tara, part 11: Fionn offers to defen…

Why were the lads all staring at their wine-cups?

Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 4 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: lads · What happens: stare

This is test 4 · ★ of lesson 1043 «Fionn Tales, Fionn at Tara, part 11: Fionn offers to defend Tara against Aillen» of the books 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	6 staring	advmod
2	were	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	6 staring	aux
3	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	4 lads	det
4	lads	lad	NOUN	Number=Plur	6 staring	nsubj
5	all	all	ADV	_	6 staring	advmod
6	staring	stare	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	root	root
7	at	at	ADP	_	11 cups	case
8	their	their	PRON	Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	11 cups	nmod:poss
9	wine	wine	NOUN	Number=Sing	11 cups	compound
10	-	-	PUNCT	_	9 wine	punct
11	cups	cup	NOUN	Number=Plur	6 staring	obl
12	?	?	PUNCT	_	6 staring	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	stare	past · progressive	the lads					at lads's wine cups; all property	vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent at cup=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 · ← Mova's choice

They feared Aillen

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	They	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	2 feared	nsubj
2	feared	fear	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	Aillen	Aillen	PROPN	Number=Sing	2 feared	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	fear	past	They	Aillen					vn admire-31.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer aillen=Stimulus

Option 2

They were afraid

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	They	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	3 afraid	nsubj
2	were	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 afraid	cop
3	afraid	afraid	ADJ	Degree=Pos	root	root

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is	past	They					afraid property	tree rules

Option 3

They were scared

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	They	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	3 scared	nsubj
2	were	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 scared	cop
3	scared	scared	ADJ	Degree=Pos	root	root

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is	past	They					scared property	tree rules

Option 4 · ✓ the right answer

They were scared to say yes

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	They	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	3 scared	nsubj
2	were	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 scared	cop
3	scared	scared	ADJ	Degree=Pos	root	root
4	to	to	PART	_	5 say	mark
5	say	say	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	3 scared	xcomp
6	yes	yes	INTJ	Polarity=Pos	5 say	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is	past	They					scared property	tree rules
2	say speech: assert	to-infinitive	They not said here						vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent yes=Topic

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/books/1043-pg2892-part11/t4/