Exam question 2 · pg503, Whittington and His Cat, part 49: a hungry boy is t…

By what means was the vessel bearing the cat driven upon the coast of Barbary?

Mova's choice: option 3 · The right answer: option 3 · right ✓ · Who acts: vessel · What happens: mean, be, bear, drive · To what, where: vessel, cat

This is exam question 2 of lesson 1462 «pg503, Whittington and His Cat, part 49: a hungry boy is taken in, buys a cat, and sends her to sea» 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=Int	6 vessel	nsubj
3	means	mean	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	2 what	acl:relcl
4	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	6 vessel	cop
5	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	6 vessel	det
6	vessel	vessel	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root
7	bearing	bear	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	6 vessel	acl
8	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	9 cat	det
9	cat	cat	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 bearing	obj
10	driven	drive	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	9 cat	acl
11	upon	upon	ADP	_	13 coast	case
12	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	13 coast	det
13	coast	coast	NOUN	Number=Sing	10 driven	obl
14	of	of	ADP	_	15 Barbary	case
15	Barbary	Barbary	PROPN	Number=Sing	13 coast	nmod
16	?	?	PUNCT	_	6 vessel	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	other	roles by
1	mean	present				vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V S»: agent=Agent
2	is a	past		the vessel		tree rules
3	bear	gerund	the vessel not said here	the cat		vn birth-28.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent cat=Patient
4	drive	participle		the cat not said here	upon the coast of Barbary	vn nonvehicle-51.4.2-1 «NP.agent V»: 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

By a fierce gale

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	By	by	ADP	_	4 gale	case
2	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	4 gale	det
3	fierce	fierce	ADJ	Degree=Pos	4 gale	amod
4	gale	gale	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root

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

Option 2

By fog

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

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

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

Option 3 · ← Mova's choice · ✓ the right answer

By contrary winds

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	By	by	ADP	_	3 winds	case
2	contrary	contrary	ADJ	Degree=Pos	3 winds	amod
3	winds	wind	NOUN	Number=Plur	root	root

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

Option 4

By storm

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	By	by	ADP	_	2 storm	case
2	storm	storm	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/1462-pg503-part49/e2/