Exam question 4 · Catalan Folk-Tales, The Water of Life, part 2: the brother…

Upon what grounds did the youngest brother resolve to proceed toward the mountain?

Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 3 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: youngest brother · What happens: ground, resolve, proceed

This is exam question 4 of lesson 1644 «Catalan Folk-Tales, The Water of Life, part 2: the brothers climb the mountain and turn to stone» 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	Upon	upon	SCONJ	_	3 grounds	mark
2	what	what	PRON	PronType=Int	3 grounds	nsubj
3	grounds	ground	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	8 resolve	advcl
4	did	do	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	8 resolve	aux
5	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	7 brother	det
6	youngest	young	ADJ	Degree=Sup	7 brother	amod
7	brother	brother	NOUN	Number=Sing	8 resolve	nsubj
8	resolve	resolve	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
9	to	to	PART	_	10 proceed	mark
10	proceed	proceed	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	8 resolve	xcomp
11	toward	toward	ADP	_	13 mountain	case
12	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	13 mountain	det
13	mountain	mountain	NOUN	Number=Sing	10 proceed	obl
14	?	?	PUNCT	_	8 resolve	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	other	roles by
1	ground	present			vn pocket-9.10-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
2	resolve	past · do-support	the youngest brother		tree rules
3	proceed	to-infinitive	the youngest brother not said here	toward the mountain	vn begin-55.1 «NP V S_INF»: 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 · ← Mova's choice

his brothers' long absence and silence

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	2 brothers	nmod:poss
2	brothers	brother	NOUN	Number=Plur	5 absence	nmod:poss
3	'	's	PART	_	2 brothers	case
4	long	long	ADJ	Degree=Pos	5 absence	amod
5	absence	absence	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root
6	and	and	CCONJ	_	7 silence	cc
7	silence	silence	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 absence	conj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	absent		his brothers						nom absence «state transitive»: poss=agent

Option 2

his brothers' request

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	2 brothers	nmod:poss
2	brothers	brother	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 request	nmod:poss
3	'	's	PART	_	2 brothers	case
4	request	request	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	request		his brothers						nom request «communication transitive»: poss=agent

Option 3 · ✓ the right answer

the failure of his brothers to return

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	2 failure	det
2	failure	failure	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root
3	of	of	ADP	_	5 brothers	case
4	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	5 brothers	nmod:poss
5	brothers	brother	NOUN	Number=Plur	2 failure	nmod
6	to	to	PART	_	7 return	mark
7	return	return	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	2 failure	acl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	return	to-infinitive							vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
2	fail		his brothers						nom failure «act intransitive»: of=agent

Option 4

the sister's plea for his safety

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	2 sister	det
2	sister	sister	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 plea	nmod:poss
3	's	's	PART	_	2 sister	case
4	plea	plea	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root
5	for	for	ADP	_	7 safety	case
6	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	7 safety	nmod:poss
7	safety	safety	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 plea	nmod

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/1644-pg5615-part33/e4/