Exam question 4 · Russian Folk-Tales, The Little Tsar Novishny, part 11: the…

What circumstance obliged the city to depend upon a single spring?

Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 3 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: circumstance · What happens: oblige, depend · To what, where: city

This is exam question 4 of lesson 1105 «Russian Folk-Tales, The Little Tsar Novishny, part 11: the starling's warnings and the boiling water» 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	DET	PronType=Int	2 circumstance	det
2	circumstance	circumstance	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 obliged	nsubj
3	obliged	oblige	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
4	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	5 city	det
5	city	city	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 obliged	obj
6	to	to	PART	_	7 depend	mark
7	depend	depend	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	3 obliged	advcl
8	upon	upon	ADP	_	11 spring	case
9	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	11 spring	det
10	single	single	ADJ	Degree=Pos	11 spring	amod
11	spring	spring	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 depend	obl
12	?	?	PUNCT	_	3 obliged	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	oblige	past	what circumstance	the city					vn compel-59.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent city=Patient
2	depend	to-infinitive	what circumstance not said here				spring		vn rely-70 «NP V PP.theme S_ING»: agent=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 · ← Mova's choice

drought

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	drought	drought	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root

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

Option 2

the drought that dried all the other springs

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	2 drought	det
2	drought	drought	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root
3	that	that	PRON	PronType=Rel	4 dried	nsubj
4	dried	dry	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	2 drought	acl:relcl
5	all	all	DET	PronType=Tot	8 springs	det:predet
6	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	8 springs	det
7	other	other	ADJ	Degree=Pos	8 springs	amod
8	springs	spring	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 dried	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	dry	past	the drought				spring		vn other_cos-45.4-1 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient

Option 3 · ✓ the right answer

the absence of any other source of water

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	2 absence	det
2	absence	absence	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root
3	of	of	ADP	_	6 source	case
4	any	any	DET	PronType=Ind	6 source	det
5	other	other	ADJ	Degree=Pos	6 source	amod
6	source	source	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 absence	nmod
7	of	of	ADP	_	8 water	case
8	water	water	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 source	nmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	absent			any other source of water					nom absence «state transitive»: of=patient

Option 4

the lack of a second river

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	2 lack	det
2	lack	lack	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root
3	of	of	ADP	_	6 river	case
4	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	6 river	det
5	second	second	ADJ	Degree=Pos NumForm=Word NumType=Ord	6 river	amod
6	river	river	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 lack	nmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	lack			a second river					nom lack «state transitive»: of=patient

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/1105-pg29672-part11/e4/