Exam question 2 · English Fairy Tales, The Red Ettin: the young man beats th…

By what means did the husband in the second tale retrieve the golden arm from the deceased?

Mova's choice: option 2 · The right answer: option 3 · wrong ✗ · What happens: mean, retrieve, decease · To what, where: golden arm, second tale

This is exam question 2 of lesson 1963 «English Fairy Tales, The Red Ettin: the young man beats the three-headed Ettin with riddles and a magic wand, and frees the king's daughter and the prisoners.» 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	By	by	ADP	_	2 what	case
2	what	what	PRON	PronType=Int	4 did	obj
3	means	mean	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	2 what	acl:relcl
4	did	do	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	11 retrieve	aux
5	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	6 husband	det
6	husband	husband	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 did	obj
7	in	in	ADP	_	10 tale	case
8	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	10 tale	det
9	second	second	ADJ	Degree=Pos NumForm=Word NumType=Ord	10 tale	amod
10	tale	tale	NOUN	Number=Sing	11 retrieve	obl
11	retrieve	retrieve	VERB	Mood=Imp VerbForm=Fin	root	root
12	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	14 arm	det
13	golden	golden	ADJ	Degree=Pos	14 arm	amod
14	arm	arm	NOUN	Number=Sing	11 retrieve	obj
15	from	from	SCONJ	_	17 deceased	mark
16	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	17 deceased	det
17	deceased	decease	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	11 retrieve	advcl
18	?	?	PUNCT	_	11 retrieve	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	what, whom	where	roles by
1	mean	present			vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V S»: agent=Agent
2	retrieve	past · do-support	the golden arm	the second tale	vn obtain-13.5.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent arm=Theme
3	decease	participle			vn die-42.4 «NP V»: agent=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

by bribing the grave digger

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	by	by	SCONJ	_	2 bribing	mark
2	bribing	bribe	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	root	root
3	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	5 digger	det
4	grave	grave	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 digger	compound
5	digger	digger	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 bribing	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	bribe	gerund		the grave digger					vn compel-59.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent digger=Patient

Option 2 · ← Mova's choice

with a spade

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	with	with	ADP	_	3 spade	case
2	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	3 spade	det
3	spade	spade	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root

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

Option 3 · ✓ the right answer

by digging up the body at night

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	by	by	SCONJ	_	2 digging	mark
2	digging	dig	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	root	root
3	up	up	ADP	_	2 digging	compound:prt
4	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	5 body	det
5	body	body	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 digging	obj
6	at	at	ADP	_	7 night	case
7	night	night	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 digging	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	dig up	gerund		the body			night		vn poke-19-1-1-1 «NP V NP.theme»: agent=Agent body=Theme

Option 4

by stealing the golden ring

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	by	by	SCONJ	_	2 stealing	mark
2	stealing	steal	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	root	root
3	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	5 ring	det
4	golden	golden	ADJ	Degree=Pos	5 ring	amod
5	ring	ring	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 stealing	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	steal	gerund		the golden ring					vn appear-48.1.1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location ring=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/1963-pg7439-part22/e2/