Exam question 4 · Ruthenian Folk-Tales, The Little Tsar Novishny, part 10: t…

Explain the purpose the serpent assigns to the sister's requests for animal milk.

Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 4 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: you, serpent, sister · What happens: explain, assign, request · To what, where: purpose, requests

This is exam question 4 of lesson 1104 «Ruthenian Folk-Tales, The Little Tsar Novishny, part 10: the Tsar milks three wild mothers and gains new companions while the serpent's plan fails» 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	Explain	explain	VERB	Mood=Imp VerbForm=Fin	root	root
2	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	3 purpose	det
3	purpose	purpose	NOUN	Number=Sing	1 Explain	obj
4	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	5 serpent	det
5	serpent	serpent	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 assigns	nsubj
6	assigns	assign	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	1 Explain	parataxis
7	to	to	ADP	_	11 requests	case
8	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	9 sister	det
9	sister	sister	NOUN	Number=Sing	11 requests	nmod:poss
10	's	's	PART	_	9 sister	case
11	requests	request	NOUN	Number=Plur	6 assigns	obl
12	for	for	ADP	_	14 milk	case
13	animal	animal	NOUN	Number=Sing	14 milk	compound
14	milk	milk	NOUN	Number=Sing	11 requests	nmod
15	.	.	PUNCT	_	1 Explain	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	other	roles by
1	explain speech: assert	imperative	you not said here	the purpose		vn transfer_mesg-37.1.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent purpose=Topic
2	assign	present	the serpent		to the sister's requests for animal milk goal	vn future_having-13.3 «NP V NP PP.goal»: agent=Agent to request=Goal
3	request		the sister		for animal milk	nom request «communication transitive»: poss=agent for=obl

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

To let the animals turn on the Tsar

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	To	to	PART	_	2 let	mark
2	let	let	VERB	Mood=Imp VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	4 animals	det
4	animals	animal	NOUN	Number=Plur	5 turn	nsubj
5	turn	turn	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	2 let	xcomp
6	on	on	ADP	_	8 Tsar	case
7	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	8 Tsar	det
8	Tsar	Tsar	PROPN	Number=Sing	5 turn	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	let	to-infinitive							tree rules
2	turn	present	the animals			the Tsar			vn roll-51.3.1 «NP V PP.trajectory»: agent=Theme on tsar=Trajectory

Option 2

To kill the Tsar

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	To	to	PART	_	2 kill	mark
2	kill	kill	VERB	Mood=Imp VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	4 Tsar	det
4	Tsar	Tsar	PROPN	Number=Sing	2 kill	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	kill	to-infinitive		the Tsar					vn remove-10.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent tsar=Theme

Option 3

To make the Tsar die by beasts

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	To	to	PART	_	2 make	mark
2	make	make	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	5 die	advcl
3	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	4 Tsar	det
4	Tsar	Tsar	PROPN	Number=Sing	2 make	obj
5	die	die	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
6	by	by	ADP	_	7 beasts	case
7	beasts	beast	NOUN	Number=Plur	5 die	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	make	to-infinitive		the Tsar					vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset tsar=Product
2	die	present						by beasts	vn calibratable_cos-45.6.1 «NP.attribute V»: agent=Attribute

Option 4 · ✓ the right answer

To have the Tsar killed by his own beasts

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	To	to	PART	_	2 have	mark
2	have	have	VERB	Mood=Imp VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	4 Tsar	det
4	Tsar	Tsar	PROPN	Number=Sing	5 killed	nsubj
5	killed	kill	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	2 have	ccomp
6	by	by	ADP	_	9 beasts	case
7	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	9 beasts	nmod:poss
8	own	own	ADJ	Degree=Pos	9 beasts	amod
9	beasts	beast	NOUN	Number=Plur	5 killed	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	have	to-infinitive							tree rules
2	kill	past	the Tsar					by Tsar's own beasts	vn amuse-31.1 «NP V ADV-Middle»: agent=Experiencer

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/1104-pg29672-part10/e4/