Exam question 4 · Perrault, Little Thumb: Little Thumb takes the Ogre's boot…

What quality did the magic boots possess that enabled them to fit Little Thumb's feet?

Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 3 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: quality, magic boots, that · What happens: do, possess, enable, fit · To what, where: boots, feet

This is exam question 4 of lesson 1090 «Perrault, Little Thumb: Little Thumb takes the Ogre's boots and gold and becomes rich» 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	What	what	PRON	PronType=Int	3 did	obj
2	quality	quality	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	6 boots	det
5	magic	magic	ADJ	Degree=Pos	6 boots	amod
6	boots	boot	NOUN	Number=Plur	7 possess	nsubj
7	possess	possess	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	3 did	parataxis
8	that	that	PRON	PronType=Rel	9 enabled	nsubj
9	enabled	enable	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	7 possess	ccomp
10	them	they	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	9 enabled	obj
11	to	to	PART	_	12 fit	mark
12	fit	fit	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	9 enabled	advcl
13	Little	little	ADJ	Degree=Pos	14 Thumb	amod
14	Thumb	Thumb	PROPN	Number=Sing	16 feet	nmod:poss
15	's	's	PART	_	14 Thumb	case
16	feet	foot	NOUN	Number=Plur	12 fit	obj
17	?	?	PUNCT	_	3 did	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	roles by
1	do	past	quality		vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent what=Eventuality
2	possess	present	the magic boots		tree rules
3	enable	past	that	boots = boot	tree rules
4	fit	to-infinitive	that not said here	Little Thumb's feet	vn adjust-26.9 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent foot=Patient

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

The power to change their size to fit any foot

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	2 power	det
2	power	power	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 change	nsubj
3	to	to	PART	_	4 change	mark
4	change	change	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
5	their	their	PRON	Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	6 size	nmod:poss
6	size	size	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 change	obj
7	to	to	PART	_	8 fit	mark
8	fit	fit	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	4 change	advcl
9	any	any	DET	PronType=Ind	10 foot	det
10	foot	foot	NOUN	Number=Sing	8 fit	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	change	to-infinitive	the power	their size					vn dress-41.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent size=Patient
2	fit	to-infinitive	the power not said here	any foot					vn adjust-26.9 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent foot=Patient

Option 2

The power to change their size and run very fast over land

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	2 power	det
2	power	power	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 change	nsubj
3	to	to	PART	_	4 change	mark
4	change	change	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
5	their	their	PRON	Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	6 size	nmod:poss
6	size	size	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 change	obj
7	and	and	CCONJ	_	8 run	cc
8	run	run	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	4 change	conj
9	very	very	ADV	_	10 fast	advmod
10	fast	fast	ADV	Degree=Pos	8 run	advmod
11	over	over	ADP	_	12 land	case
12	land	land	NOUN	Number=Sing	8 run	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	change	to-infinitive	the power	their size					vn dress-41.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent size=Patient
2	run	present	the power not said here			land		fast property	vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme over land=Trajectory

Option 3 · ✓ the right answer

The power to change their size

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	2 power	det
2	power	power	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root
3	to	to	PART	_	4 change	mark
4	change	change	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	2 power	acl
5	their	their	PRON	Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	6 size	nmod:poss
6	size	size	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 change	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	change	to-infinitive		their size					vn dress-41.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent size=Patient

Option 4

They could shrink and grow

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 shrink	nsubj
2	could	could	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 shrink	aux
3	shrink	shrink	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	and	and	CCONJ	_	5 grow	cc
5	grow	grow	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	3 shrink	conj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	shrink	could	They						vn bend-45.2 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient
2	grow	infinitive	They not said here						vn appear-48.1.1 «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/books/1090-pg29021-part15/e4/