Exam question 4 · Celtic Fairy Tales, The Shifty Lad, part 2: the boy become…

Which person did the Black Rogue's wife formally designate as the superior practitioner of the thieving art?

Mova's choice: option 3 · The right answer: option 1 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: person · What happens: do, designate, thieve · To what, where: wife

This is exam question 4 of lesson 1277 «Celtic Fairy Tales, The Shifty Lad, part 2: the boy becomes a thief's apprentice and robs a farmer at Hallowe'en» 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 person	det
2	person	person	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 Rogue	det
5	Black	Black	PROPN	Number=Sing	6 Rogue	compound
6	Rogue	Rogue	PROPN	Number=Sing	8 wife	nmod:poss
7	's	's	PART	_	6 Rogue	case
8	wife	wife	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 did	obj
9	formally	formally	ADV	_	10 designate	advmod
10	designate	designate	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	3 did	parataxis
11	as	as	ADP	_	14 practitioner	case
12	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	14 practitioner	det
13	superior	superior	ADJ	Degree=Pos	14 practitioner	amod
14	practitioner	practitioner	NOUN	Number=Sing	10 designate	obl
15	of	of	ADP	_	18 art	case
16	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	18 art	det
17	thieving	thieve	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	18 art	amod
18	art	art	NOUN	Number=Sing	14 practitioner	nmod
19	?	?	PUNCT	_	3 did	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	other	roles by
1	do	past	which person	the Black Rogue's wife		vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent wife=Eventuality
2	designate	present			as the superior practitioner of the thieving art; formally property	vn appoint-29.1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Agent as practitioner=Attribute
3	thieve	gerund				vn steal-10.5 «NP V NP»: 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 · ✓ the right answer

the Shifty Lad

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	3 Lad	det
2	Shifty	shifty	ADJ	Degree=Pos	3 Lad	amod
3	Lad	Lad	PROPN	Number=Sing	root	root

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

Option 2

the young lad who fooled his own mother

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	3 lad	det
2	young	young	ADJ	Degree=Pos	3 lad	amod
3	lad	lad	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root
4	who	who	PRON	PronType=Rel	5 fooled	nsubj
5	fooled	fool	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 lad	acl:relcl
6	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	8 mother	nmod:poss
7	own	own	ADJ	Degree=Pos	8 mother	amod
8	mother	mother	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 fooled	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	fool	past	the young lad	his own mother					vn trick-59.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent mother=Patient

Option 3 · ← Mova's choice

the boy

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	2 boy	det
2	boy	boy	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root

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

Option 4

the farmer's man

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	2 farmer	det
2	farmer	farmer	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 man	nmod:poss
3	's	's	PART	_	2 farmer	case
4	man	man	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/1277-pg3454-part2/e4/