Exam question 3 · English Fairy Tales, The Red Ettin: the young man beats th…
What was the nature of the ploughman's wish regarding his offspring?
Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 2 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: nature, ploughman · What happens: be, regard, wish
This is exam question 3 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 | 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 nature | det |
| 4 | nature | nature | NOUN | Number=Sing | 1 What | nsubj |
| 5 | of | of | ADP | _ | 9 wish | case |
| 6 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 7 ploughman | det |
| 7 | ploughman | ploughman | NOUN | Number=Sing | 9 wish | nmod:poss |
| 8 | 's | 's | PART | _ | 7 ploughman | case |
| 9 | wish | wish | NOUN | Number=Sing | 4 nature | nmod |
| 10 | regarding | regard | VERB | Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part | 12 offspring | case |
| 11 | his | his | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 12 offspring | nmod:poss |
| 12 | offspring | offspring | NOUN | Number=Sing | 9 wish | nmod |
| 13 | ? | ? | PUNCT | _ | 1 What | punct |
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | is a | past | the nature of the ploughman's wish regard his offspring | tree rules | |||||
| 2 | regard | gerund | vn assessment-34.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent | ||||||
| 3 | wish | the ploughman | regard his offspring | nom wish «feeling intransitive»: poss=agent regard=obl |
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
a son as small as a bean
The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)
| # | word | lemma | UPOS | features | head | relation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 2 son | det |
| 2 | son | son | NOUN | Number=Sing | 4 small | nsubj |
| 3 | as | as | ADV | _ | 4 small | advmod |
| 4 | small | small | ADJ | Degree=Pos | root | root |
| 5 | as | as | ADP | _ | 7 bean | case |
| 6 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 7 bean | det |
| 7 | bean | bean | NOUN | Number=Sing | 4 small | obl |
The frames reader finds no event or fact in this sentence.
Option 2 · ✓ the right answer
a son no larger than a thumb
The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)
| # | word | lemma | UPOS | features | head | relation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 2 son | det |
| 2 | son | son | NOUN | Number=Sing | 4 larger | nsubj |
| 3 | no | no | ADV | _ | 4 larger | advmod |
| 4 | larger | large | ADJ | Degree=Cmp | root | root |
| 5 | than | than | ADP | _ | 7 thumb | case |
| 6 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 7 thumb | det |
| 7 | thumb | thumb | NOUN | Number=Sing | 4 larger | obl |
The frames reader finds no event or fact in this sentence.
Option 3
a child the size of a hand
The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)
| # | word | lemma | UPOS | features | head | relation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 2 child | det |
| 2 | child | child | NOUN | Number=Sing | root | root |
| 3 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 4 size | det |
| 4 | size | size | NOUN | Number=Sing | 2 child | appos |
| 5 | of | of | ADP | _ | 7 hand | case |
| 6 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 7 hand | det |
| 7 | hand | hand | NOUN | Number=Sing | 4 size | nmod |
The frames reader finds no event or fact in this sentence.
Option 4
a son no larger than a thumb, yet clever
The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)
| # | word | lemma | UPOS | features | head | relation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 2 son | det |
| 2 | son | son | NOUN | Number=Sing | 4 larger | nsubj |
| 3 | no | no | ADV | _ | 4 larger | advmod |
| 4 | larger | large | ADJ | Degree=Cmp | root | root |
| 5 | than | than | ADP | _ | 7 thumb | case |
| 6 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 7 thumb | det |
| 7 | thumb | thumb | NOUN | Number=Sing | 4 larger | obl |
| 8 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 10 clever | punct |
| 9 | yet | yet | CCONJ | _ | 10 clever | cc |
| 10 | clever | clever | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 4 larger | conj |
The frames reader finds no event or fact in this sentence.
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/e3/