Exam question 3 · Pink Fairy Book, Prince Mirliflor, part 12: the watch fall…

Which fairy was to be preferred between the two candidates for sovereignty?

Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 4 · wrong ✗ · What happens: prefer · To what, where: fairy

This is exam question 3 of lesson 1875 «Pink Fairy Book, Prince Mirliflor, part 12: the watch falls into the sea and the fairies choose a new Queen» 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	Which	which	DET	PronType=Int	2 fairy	det
2	fairy	fairy	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 preferred	nsubj:pass
3	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	6 preferred	aux:pass
4	to	to	PART	_	6 preferred	mark
5	be	be	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	6 preferred	aux:pass
6	preferred	prefer	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	root	root
7	between	between	ADP	_	10 candidates	case
8	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	10 candidates	det
9	two	two	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	10 candidates	nummod
10	candidates	candidate	NOUN	Number=Plur	6 preferred	obl
11	for	for	ADP	_	12 sovereignty	case
12	sovereignty	sovereignty	NOUN	Number=Sing	10 candidates	nmod
13	?	?	PUNCT	_	6 preferred	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	prefer	past · passive		which fairy				between the two candidates for sovereignty	vn admire-31.2 «NP V NP»: subject=Stimulus

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

Surcantine, the eldest

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Surcantine	Surcantine	PROPN	Number=Sing	4 eldest	nsubj
2	,	,	PUNCT	_	1 Surcantine	punct
3	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	4 eldest	det
4	eldest	eld	ADJ	Degree=Sup	root	root

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

Option 2

Neither, since both were proud

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Neither	neither	ADV	_	6 proud	advmod
2	,	,	PUNCT	_	1 Neither	punct
3	since	since	SCONJ	_	6 proud	mark
4	both	both	DET	PronType=Tot	6 proud	nsubj
5	were	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	6 proud	cop
6	proud	proud	ADJ	Degree=Pos	root	root

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is	past	both					neither, proud property	tree rules

Option 3

The younger of the two

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	2 younger	det
2	younger	young	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	root	root
3	of	of	ADP	_	5 two	case
4	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	5 two	det
5	two	two	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	2 younger	obl

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

Option 4 · ✓ the right answer

Neither, as their claims were equal

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Neither	neither	ADV	_	7 equal	advmod
2	,	,	PUNCT	_	1 Neither	punct
3	as	as	ADP	_	5 claims	case
4	their	their	PRON	Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	5 claims	nmod:poss
5	claims	claim	NOUN	Number=Plur	7 equal	obl
6	were	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	7 equal	cop
7	equal	equal	ADJ	Degree=Pos	root	root

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is	past						as their claims; equal, neither property	tree rules
2	claim		their = they						nom claim «communication transitive»: poss=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/1875-pg7277-part12/e3/