Exam question 4 · Arabian Nights, Sinbad the Sailor, part 24: a storm, a cas…

What was the fate of the serpent's intended victim?

Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 2 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: fate · What happens: be, intend, fate · To what, where: intended victim

This is exam question 4 of lesson 184 «Arabian Nights, Sinbad the Sailor, part 24: a storm, a castle of giants, and a hungry snake» 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	root	root
2	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	1 What	cop
3	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	4 fate	det
4	fate	fate	NOUN	Number=Sing	1 What	nsubj
5	of	of	ADP	_	10 victim	case
6	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	7 serpent	det
7	serpent	serpent	NOUN	Number=Sing	10 victim	nmod:poss
8	's	's	PART	_	7 serpent	case
9	intended	intend	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	10 victim	amod
10	victim	victim	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 fate	nmod
11	?	?	PUNCT	_	1 What	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	roles by
1	is a	past	the fate of the serpent's intended victim		tree rules
2	intend	participle			vn intend-61.2-1-1 «NP V S_ING»: agent=Agent
3	fate			the serpent's intended victim	nom fate «event transitive»: of=patient

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

it was swallowed whole by the serpent and its guts

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	it	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	3 swallowed	nsubj:pass
2	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 swallowed	aux:pass
3	swallowed	swallow	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	root	root
4	whole	whole	ADJ	Degree=Pos	3 swallowed	xcomp
5	by	by	ADP	_	7 serpent	case
6	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	7 serpent	det
7	serpent	serpent	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 swallowed	obl
8	and	and	CCONJ	_	10 guts	cc
9	its	its	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	10 guts	nmod:poss
10	guts	gut	NOUN	Number=Plur	7 serpent	conj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	swallow	past · passive	the serpent and its guts	it				whole property	vn gobble-39.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent subject=Patient

Option 2 · ✓ the right answer

consumed by the serpent

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	consumed	consume	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	root	root
2	by	by	ADP	_	4 serpent	case
3	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	4 serpent	det
4	serpent	serpent	NOUN	Number=Sing	1 consumed	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	consume	participle						by the serpent	vn consume-66 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent

Option 3

carried off by a bird

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	carried	carry	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	root	root
2	off	off	ADP	_	1 carried	compound:prt
3	by	by	ADP	_	5 bird	case
4	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	5 bird	det
5	bird	bird	NOUN	Number=Sing	1 carried	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	carry off	participle						by a bird	vn carry-11.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent

Option 4

swallowed by the sand

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	swallowed	swallow	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	root	root
2	by	by	ADP	_	4 sand	case
3	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	4 sand	det
4	sand	sand	NOUN	Number=Sing	1 swallowed	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	swallow	participle						by the sand	vn hiccup-40.1.1 «NP V»: 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/184-pg128-part24/e4/