Exam question 3 · Household Tales, Frederick and Catherine: thieves flee fro…

Which object did the thieves believe to be the Evil One descending the tree?

Mova's choice: option 2 · The right answer: option 4 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: object, thieves, Evil One · What happens: do, believe, be, descend · To what, where: Evil One, tree · Speech: someone speaks here

This is exam question 3 of lesson 108 «Household Tales, Frederick and Catherine: thieves flee from what they think is the Evil One» 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	Which	which	DET	PronType=Int	2 object	det
2	object	object	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 did	nsubj
3	did	do	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
4	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	5 thieves	det
5	thieves	thief	NOUN	Number=Plur	6 believe	nsubj
6	believe	believe	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	3 did	parataxis
7	to	to	PART	_	11 One	mark
8	be	be	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	11 One	cop
9	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	11 One	det
10	Evil	evil	ADJ	Degree=Pos	11 One	amod
11	One	one	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 believe	ccomp
12	descending	descend	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	11 One	acl
13	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	14 tree	det
14	tree	tree	NOUN	Number=Sing	12 descending	obj
15	?	?	PUNCT	_	3 did	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	roles by
1	do	past	which object		vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent
2	believe	present	the thieves		vn admire-31.2 «NP V that S»: agent=Experiencer
3	is a	to-infinitive		the Evil One	tree rules
4	descend	gerund	the Evil One not said here	the tree	vn meander-47.7-1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location tree=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

The wooden door that Catherine had carried away

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	3 door	det
2	wooden	wooden	ADJ	Degree=Pos	3 door	amod
3	door	door	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root
4	that	that	SCONJ	_	7 carried	mark
5	Catherine	Catherine	PROPN	Number=Sing	7 carried	nsubj:pass
6	had	have	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	7 carried	aux
7	carried	carry	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	3 door	acl
8	away	away	ADV	_	7 carried	advmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	carry away	past · perfect · passive	the wooden door not said here	Catherine				away property	vn carry-11.4 «NP V NP»: subject=Theme

Option 2 · ← Mova's choice

The heavy oak door as it fell from the window

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	4 door	det
2	heavy	heavy	ADJ	Degree=Pos	4 door	amod
3	oak	oak	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 door	compound
4	door	door	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 fell	nsubj
5	as	as	ADP	_	6 it	case
6	it	it	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	4 door	nmod
7	fell	fall	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
8	from	from	ADP	_	10 window	case
9	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	10 window	det
10	window	window	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 fell	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	fall	past	the heavy oak door as it			the window			vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial_location»: agent=Theme from window=Initial_Location

Option 3

The falling beam

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	3 beam	det
2	falling	fall	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	3 beam	amod
3	beam	beam	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	fall	gerund							vn occur-48.3 «NP V»: agent=Theme

Option 4 · ✓ the right answer

The falling door

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	3 door	det
2	falling	falling	ADJ	Degree=Pos	3 door	amod
3	door	door	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root

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

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/108-pg11027-part11/e3/