Exam question 3 · Popular Tales from the Norse, The Mill, part 33: a skipper…

Why was the rich brother unable to terminate the mill's operation?

Mova's choice: option 2 · The right answer: option 2 · right ✓ · Who acts: rich brother, mill · What happens: be, terminate, operate · To what, where: operation

This is exam question 3 of lesson 1446 «Popular Tales from the Norse, The Mill, part 33: a skipper buys the magic mill for salt» 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	Why	why	ADV	PronType=Rel	root	root
2	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	1 Why	cop
3	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	5 brother	det
4	rich	rich	ADJ	Degree=Pos	5 brother	amod
5	brother	brother	NOUN	Number=Sing	1 Why	nsubj
6	unable	unable	ADJ	Degree=Pos	5 brother	amod
7	to	to	PART	_	8 terminate	mark
8	terminate	terminate	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	6 unable	xcomp
9	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	10 mill	det
10	mill	mill	NOUN	Number=Sing	12 operation	nmod:poss
11	's	's	PART	_	10 mill	case
12	operation	operation	NOUN	Number=Sing	8 terminate	obj
13	?	?	PUNCT	_	1 Why	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	other	roles by
1	is	past	the rich brother		why property	tree rules
2	terminate	to-infinitive	the rich brother not said here	the mill's operation		vn fire-10.10 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent operation=Theme
3	operate		the mill			nom operation «state transitive»: poss=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

He had never learned the secret phrase

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	He	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	4 learned	nsubj
2	had	have	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	4 learned	aux
3	never	never	ADV	PronType=Neg	4 learned	advmod
4	learned	learn	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part	root	root
5	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	7 phrase	det
6	secret	secret	ADJ	Degree=Pos	7 phrase	amod
7	phrase	phrase	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 learned	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	not learn	past · perfect	He	the secret phrase					vn learn-14-2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent phrase=Topic

Option 2 · ← Mova's choice · ✓ the right answer

He had not been instructed in the method

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	He	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	5 instructed	nsubj:pass
2	had	have	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	5 instructed	aux
3	not	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	5 instructed	advmod
4	been	be	AUX	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part	5 instructed	aux:pass
5	instructed	instruct	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	root	root
6	in	in	ADP	_	8 method	case
7	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	8 method	det
8	method	method	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 instructed	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	not instruct speech: other	past · perfect · passive		He		the method			vn advise-37.9-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: subject=Recipient

Option 3

He was never told the proper method

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	He	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	4 told	nsubj
2	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	4 told	aux:pass
3	never	never	ADV	PronType=Neg	4 told	advmod
4	told	tell	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	root	root
5	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	7 method	det
6	proper	proper	ADJ	Degree=Pos	7 method	amod
7	method	method	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 told	iobj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	not tell speech: assert	past · passive		He	the proper method				vn transfer_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: subject=Recipient method=Topic

Option 4

He forgot the words

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	He	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	2 forgot	nsubj
2	forgot	forget	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	4 words	det
4	words	word	NOUN	Number=Plur	2 forgot	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	forget	past	He	the words					tree rules

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/1446-pg503-part33/e3/