Exam question 3 · English Fairy Tales, The Three Sillies, part 3: the girl g…

What was the cow's initial response to the ladder placed before her?

Mova's choice: option 2 · The right answer: option 4 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: initial response · What happens: be, place · To what, where: ladder

This is exam question 3 of lesson 1944 «English Fairy Tales, The Three Sillies, part 3: the girl guesses the imp's name, and the sillies begin their troubles» 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 cow	det
4	cow	cow	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 response	nmod:poss
5	's	's	PART	_	4 cow	case
6	initial	initial	ADJ	Degree=Pos	7 response	amod
7	response	response	NOUN	Number=Sing	1 What	nsubj
8	to	to	ADP	_	10 ladder	case
9	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	10 ladder	det
10	ladder	ladder	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 response	nmod
11	placed	place	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	10 ladder	acl
12	before	before	ADP	_	13 her	case
13	her	she	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	11 placed	obl
14	?	?	PUNCT	_	1 What	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is a	past	the cow's initial response to the ladder						tree rules
2	place	participle		the ladder not said here			before cow		vn put-9.1-2 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent before she=Destination

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

She stepped up at once

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	She	she	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	2 stepped	nsubj
2	stepped	step	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	up	up	ADP	_	2 stepped	compound:prt
4	at	at	ADP	_	5 once	case
5	once	once	ADV	NumForm=Word NumType=Mult	2 stepped	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	step up	past	She						vn run-51.3.2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme at once=Trajectory

Option 2 · ← Mova's choice

She ate grass

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	She	she	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	2 ate	nsubj
2	ate	eat	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	grass	grass	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 ate	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	eat	past	She	grass					vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent grass=Patient

Option 3

She ran off

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	She	she	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	2 ran	nsubj
2	ran	run	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	off	off	ADP	_	2 ran	compound:prt

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	run off	past	She						vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme

Option 4 · ✓ the right answer

She refused to climb it

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	She	she	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	2 refused	nsubj
2	refused	refuse	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	to	to	PART	_	4 climb	mark
4	climb	climb	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	2 refused	xcomp
5	it	it	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	4 climb	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	refuse	past	She						vn reject-77.2 «NP V S_ING»: agent=Agent clause=Theme
2	not climb	to-infinitive	She not said here	it					vn run-51.3.2 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Initial_Location it=Theme

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/1944-pg7439-part3/e3/