Exam question 2 · English Fairy Tales, Nix Nought Nothing, part 1: a king pr…

What precise instruction did the giant issue concerning the stable?

Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 4 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: precise instruction, giant issue · What happens: do, concern · To what, where: giant issue, stable

This is exam question 2 of lesson 1947 «English Fairy Tales, Nix Nought Nothing, part 1: a king promises his son to a giant, and the boy escapes with the giant's daughter» 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	4 did	obj
2	precise	precise	ADJ	Degree=Pos	3 instruction	amod
3	instruction	instruction	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 did	nsubj
4	did	do	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
5	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	7 issue	det
6	giant	giant	ADJ	Degree=Pos	7 issue	amod
7	issue	issue	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 did	obj
8	concerning	concern	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	7 issue	acl
9	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	10 stable	det
10	stable	stable	NOUN	Number=Sing	8 concerning	obj
11	?	?	PUNCT	_	4 did	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	do	past	precise instruction	the giant issue					tree rules
2	concern	gerund	the giant issue not said here	the stable					vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Stimulus stable=Experiencer

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

to clean the whole stable by the following day

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	to	to	PART	_	2 clean	mark
2	clean	clean	VERB	Mood=Imp VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	5 stable	det
4	whole	whole	ADJ	Degree=Pos	5 stable	amod
5	stable	stable	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 clean	obj
6	by	by	ADP	_	9 day	case
7	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	9 day	det
8	following	follow	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	9 day	amod
9	day	day	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 clean	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	clean	to-infinitive		the whole stable			day		vn other_cos-45.4 «NP V NP.patient»: agent=Agent stable=Patient
2	follow	gerund							vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme

Option 2

to clean it and feed every beast by the following day

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	to	to	PART	_	2 clean	mark
2	clean	clean	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	5 feed	advcl
3	it	it	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	2 clean	obj
4	and	and	CCONJ	_	5 feed	cc
5	feed	feed	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
6	every	every	DET	PronType=Tot	7 beast	det
7	beast	beast	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 feed	obj
8	by	by	ADP	_	11 day	case
9	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	11 day	det
10	following	follow	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	11 day	amod
11	day	day	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 feed	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	what, whom	when	roles by
1	clean	to-infinitive	it		vn other_cos-45.4 «NP V NP.patient»: agent=Agent it=Patient
2	feed	present	every beast	day	vn feeding-39.7 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent beast=Recipient
3	follow	gerund			vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme

Option 3

to clean it by the next morn

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	to	to	PART	_	2 clean	mark
2	clean	clean	VERB	Mood=Imp VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	it	it	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	2 clean	obj
4	by	by	ADP	_	7 morn	case
5	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	7 morn	det
6	next	next	ADJ	Degree=Pos	7 morn	amod
7	morn	morn	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 clean	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	clean	to-infinitive		it				by the next morn	vn other_cos-45.4 «NP V NP.patient»: agent=Agent it=Patient

Option 4 · ✓ the right answer

to clean it by the following day

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	to	to	PART	_	2 clean	mark
2	clean	clean	VERB	Mood=Imp VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	it	it	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	2 clean	obj
4	by	by	ADP	_	7 day	case
5	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	7 day	det
6	following	follow	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	7 day	amod
7	day	day	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 clean	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	clean	to-infinitive		it			day		vn other_cos-45.4 «NP V NP.patient»: agent=Agent it=Patient
2	follow	gerund							vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=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/1947-pg7439-part6/e2/