Exam question 4 · Popular Tales from the Norse, East of the Sun and West of…

What instruction did the Queen give concerning the youth's obedience to his parents?

Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 1 · right ✓ · Who acts: instruction, Queen, youth · What happens: do, give, concern, obey · To what, where: obedience

This is exam question 4 of lesson 1545 «Popular Tales from the Norse, East of the Sun and West of the Moon, part 42: the youth frees the princesses, wins a queen, and sets out to find Whiteland» 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	DET	PronType=Int	2 instruction	det
2	instruction	instruction	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	5 Queen	det
5	Queen	Queen	PROPN	Number=Sing	6 give	nsubj
6	give	give	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	3 did	ccomp
7	concerning	concern	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	6 give	xcomp
8	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	9 youth	det
9	youth	youth	NOUN	Number=Sing	11 obedience	nmod:poss
10	's	's	PART	_	9 youth	case
11	obedience	obedience	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 concerning	obj
12	to	to	ADP	_	14 parents	case
13	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	14 parents	nmod:poss
14	parents	parent	NOUN	Number=Plur	7 concerning	obl
15	?	?	PUNCT	_	3 did	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	other	roles by
1	do	past	what instruction			tree rules
2	give	present	the Queen			tree rules
3	concern	gerund	the Queen not said here	the youth's obedience	to instruction's parents	vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Stimulus obedience=Experiencer
4	obey		the youth			nom obedience «act 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 · ← Mova's choice · ✓ the right answer

He was to obey his father but not his mother

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 obey	nsubj
2	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	4 obey	cop
3	to	to	PART	_	4 obey	mark
4	obey	obey	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
5	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	6 father	nmod:poss
6	father	father	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 obey	obj
7	but	but	CCONJ	_	10 mother	cc
8	not	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	10 mother	advmod
9	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	10 mother	nmod:poss
10	mother	mother	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 father	conj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is	past	He					obey property	tree rules

Option 2

He had to fight the Trolls at night

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 had	nsubj
2	had	have	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	to	to	PART	_	4 fight	mark
4	fight	fight	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	2 had	xcomp
5	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	6 Trolls	det
6	Trolls	troll	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 fight	obj
7	at	at	ADP	_	8 night	case
8	night	night	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 fight	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	have	past	He						tree rules
2	fight	to-infinitive	He not said here	the Trolls			night		vn battle-36.4-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent troll=Co-Agent

Option 3

He was to obey his father

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 obey	nsubj
2	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	4 obey	cop
3	to	to	PART	_	4 obey	mark
4	obey	obey	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
5	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	6 father	nmod:poss
6	father	father	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 obey	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is	past	He					obey property	tree rules

Option 4

He had to be quiet

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 had	nsubj
2	had	have	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	to	to	PART	_	5 quiet	mark
4	be	be	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	5 quiet	cop
5	quiet	quiet	ADJ	Degree=Pos	2 had	xcomp

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	have	past	He						vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent
2	is	to-infinitive	He not said here					quiet property	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/1545-pg540-part42/e4/