Exam question 1 · Blue Fairy Book, The Bronze Ring, part 2: the golden ship…

By what means did the old man acquire the bronze ring?

Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 3 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: old man · What happens: mean, acquire · To what, where: bronze ring

This is exam question 1 of lesson 1415 «Blue Fairy Book, The Bronze Ring, part 2: the golden ship turns black after the old man steals the ring» 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	By	by	ADP	_	2 what	case
2	what	what	PRON	PronType=Rel	8 acquire	obl
3	means	mean	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	2 what	acl:relcl
4	did	do	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	8 acquire	aux
5	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	7 man	det
6	old	old	ADJ	Degree=Pos	7 man	amod
7	man	man	NOUN	Number=Sing	8 acquire	nsubj
8	acquire	acquire	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
9	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	11 ring	det
10	bronze	bronze	NOUN	Number=Sing	11 ring	compound
11	ring	ring	NOUN	Number=Sing	8 acquire	obj
12	?	?	PUNCT	_	8 acquire	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	mean	present							vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V S»: agent=Agent
2	acquire	past · do-support	the old man	the bronze ring					vn obtain-13.5.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent ring=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 · ← Mova's choice

By winning a bet

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	By	by	SCONJ	_	2 winning	mark
2	winning	win	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	root	root
3	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	4 bet	det
4	bet	bet	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 winning	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	win	gerund		a bet					vn succeed-74-2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent bet=Eventuality

Option 2

By theft

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	By	by	ADP	_	2 theft	case
2	theft	theft	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root

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

Option 3 · ✓ the right answer

By trading red fishes

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	By	by	SCONJ	_	2 trading	mark
2	trading	trade	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	root	root
3	red	red	ADJ	Degree=Pos	4 fishes	amod
4	fishes	fish	NOUN	Number=Plur	2 trading	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	trade	gerund		red fishes					vn exchange-13.6.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent fish=Theme

Option 4

By force

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	By	by	ADP	_	2 force	case
2	force	force	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/1415-pg503-part2/e1/