Exam question 4 · Old Indian Legends, Iktomi and the Ducks, part 1: Iktomi t…

What is the principal characteristic that renders Iktomi friendless?

Mova's choice: option 4 · The right answer: option 1 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: principal characteristic · What happens: be, render · To what, where: Iktomi

This is exam question 4 of lesson 1264 «Old Indian Legends, Iktomi and the Ducks, part 1: Iktomi tricks the ducks with a song, roasts them, and ignores a crying tree» 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	root	root
2	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	1 What	cop
3	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	5 characteristic	det
4	principal	principal	ADJ	Degree=Pos	5 characteristic	amod
5	characteristic	characteristic	NOUN	Number=Sing	1 What	nsubj
6	that	that	PRON	PronType=Rel	7 renders	nsubj
7	renders	render	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	5 characteristic	acl:relcl
8	Iktomi	Iktomi	PROPN	Number=Sing	7 renders	obj
9	friendless	friendless	ADJ	Degree=Pos	7 renders	xcomp
10	?	?	PUNCT	_	1 What	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is a	present	the principal characteristic						tree rules
2	render	present	the principal characteristic	Iktomi				friendless property	vn give-13.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent iktomi=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 right answer

His vanity and his naughtiness

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	His	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	2 vanity	nmod:poss
2	vanity	vanity	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root
3	and	and	CCONJ	_	5 naughtiness	cc
4	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	5 naughtiness	nmod:poss
5	naughtiness	naughtiness	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 vanity	conj

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

Option 2

His greedy stomach and laziness

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	His	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	3 stomach	nmod:poss
2	greedy	greedy	ADJ	Degree=Pos	3 stomach	amod
3	stomach	stomach	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root
4	and	and	CCONJ	_	5 laziness	cc
5	laziness	laziness	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 stomach	conj

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

Option 3

His vanity and his naughtiness that makes everyone avoid him

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	His	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	2 vanity	nmod:poss
2	vanity	vanity	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 makes	nsubj
3	and	and	CCONJ	_	5 naughtiness	cc
4	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	5 naughtiness	nmod:poss
5	naughtiness	naughtiness	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 vanity	conj
6	that	that	PRON	PronType=Rel	7 makes	nsubj
7	makes	make	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
8	everyone	everyone	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Tot	7 makes	obj
9	avoid	avoid	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	7 makes	xcomp
10	him	he	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	9 avoid	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	make	present	His vanity and his naughtiness	everyone					tree rules
2	avoid	infinitive	everyone not said here	him = he					vn avoid-52 «NP V NP.location»: agent=Agent he=Location

Option 4 · ← Mova's choice

His constant vanity, naughtiness, and his habit of tricking the birds

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	His	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	3 vanity	nmod:poss
2	constant	constant	ADJ	Degree=Pos	3 vanity	amod
3	vanity	vanity	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root
4	,	,	PUNCT	_	5 naughtiness	punct
5	naughtiness	naughtiness	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 vanity	conj
6	,	,	PUNCT	_	9 habit	punct
7	and	and	CCONJ	_	9 habit	cc
8	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	9 habit	nmod:poss
9	habit	habit	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 vanity	appos
10	of	of	SCONJ	_	11 tricking	mark
11	tricking	trick	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	9 habit	acl
12	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	13 birds	det
13	birds	bird	NOUN	Number=Plur	11 tricking	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	trick	gerund	his habit not said here	the birds					vn trick-59.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent bird=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/1264-pg338-part1/e4/