Exam question 3 · Oz, The Winged Monkeys, part 18: Dorothy finds the Golden…

What was the principal reason the travelers were unable to locate the path to the Emerald City?

Mova's choice: option 3 · The right answer: option 4 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: travelers · What happens: be, locate · To what, where: principal reason, path

This is exam question 3 of lesson 1603 «Oz, The Winged Monkeys, part 18: Dorothy finds the Golden Cap and the Monkeys carry the travelers» 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	PRON	PronType=Int	5 reason	nsubj
2	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	5 reason	cop
3	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	5 reason	det
4	principal	principal	ADJ	Degree=Pos	5 reason	amod
5	reason	reason	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root
6	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	7 travelers	det
7	travelers	traveler	NOUN	Number=Plur	9 unable	nsubj
8	were	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	9 unable	cop
9	unable	unable	ADJ	Degree=Pos	5 reason	acl:relcl
10	to	to	PART	_	11 locate	mark
11	locate	locate	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	9 unable	xcomp
12	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	13 path	det
13	path	path	NOUN	Number=Sing	11 locate	obj
14	to	to	ADP	_	17 City	case
15	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	17 City	det
16	Emerald	Emerald	PROPN	Number=Sing	17 City	compound
17	City	City	PROPN	Number=Sing	13 path	nmod
18	?	?	PUNCT	_	5 reason	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	other	roles by
1	is a	past		the principal reason		tree rules
2	is	past	the travelers	the principal reason not said here	unable property	tree rules
3	locate	to-infinitive	the travelers not said here	the path	to the Emerald City	tree rules

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

No road was visible

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	No	no	DET	PronType=Neg	2 road	det
2	road	road	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 visible	nsubj
3	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	4 visible	cop
4	visible	visible	ADJ	Degree=Pos	root	root

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is	past	no road					visible property	tree rules

Option 2

They had no map to follow

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	They	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	2 had	nsubj
2	had	have	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	no	no	DET	PronType=Neg	4 map	det
4	map	map	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 had	obj
5	to	to	PART	_	6 follow	mark
6	follow	follow	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	4 map	acl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	have	past	They	no map					vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent map=Patient
2	follow	to-infinitive	They not said here	no map not said here					vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme

Option 3 · ← Mova's choice

They lost the yellow road in the thick fields

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	They	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	2 lost	nsubj
2	lost	lose	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	5 road	det
4	yellow	yellow	ADJ	Degree=Pos	5 road	amod
5	road	road	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 lost	obj
6	in	in	ADP	_	9 fields	case
7	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	9 fields	det
8	thick	thick	ADJ	Degree=Pos	9 fields	amod
9	fields	field	NOUN	Number=Plur	2 lost	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	lose	past	They	the yellow road		the thick fields			vn succeed-74-3-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent road=Eventuality

Option 4 · ✓ the right answer

They could not determine east from west at noon

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	They	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	4 determine	nsubj
2	could	could	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	4 determine	aux
3	not	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	4 determine	advmod
4	determine	determine	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
5	east	east	ADV	_	4 determine	advmod
6	from	from	ADP	_	7 west	case
7	west	west	ADV	_	4 determine	obl
8	at	at	ADP	_	9 noon	case
9	noon	noon	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 determine	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	not determine	could	They				noon	east property	vn conjecture-29.5 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent

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/1603-pg55-part18/e3/