Exam question 3 · English Fairy Tales, Johnny-Cake, part 1: Mr. Fox is cut t…

What occupation did Lazy Jack's mother pursue to sustain the household?

Mova's choice: option 2 · The right answer: option 3 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: occupation, mother · What happens: do, pursue, sustain · To what, where: household

This is exam question 3 of lesson 1965 «English Fairy Tales, Johnny-Cake, part 1: Mr. Fox is cut to pieces, Lazy Jack wins a bride, and a cake escapes from the oven» 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	DET	PronType=Int	2 occupation	det
2	occupation	occupation	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 did	nsubj
3	did	do	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
4	Lazy	Lazy	PROPN	Number=Sing	5 Jack	compound
5	Jack	Jack	PROPN	Number=Sing	7 mother	nmod:poss
6	's	's	PART	_	5 Jack	case
7	mother	mother	NOUN	Number=Sing	8 pursue	nsubj
8	pursue	pursue	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	3 did	parataxis
9	to	to	PART	_	10 sustain	mark
10	sustain	sustain	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	8 pursue	xcomp
11	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	12 household	det
12	household	household	NOUN	Number=Sing	10 sustain	obj
13	?	?	PUNCT	_	3 did	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	roles by
1	do	past	what occupation		vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent
2	pursue	present	Lazy Jack's mother		tree rules
3	sustain	to-infinitive	Lazy Jack's mother not said here	the household	vn sustain-55.6 «NP V NP PP.instrument»: agent=Agent household=Theme

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

cooking food

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	cooking	cook	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	root	root
2	food	food	NOUN	Number=Sing	1 cooking	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	cook	gerund		food					vn cooking-45.3 «NP V NP.patient»: agent=Agent food=Patient

Option 2 · ← Mova's choice

working as a cook in the big house

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	working	work	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	root	root
2	as	as	ADP	_	4 cook	case
3	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	4 cook	det
4	cook	cook	NOUN	Number=Sing	1 working	obl
5	in	in	ADP	_	8 house	case
6	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	8 house	det
7	big	big	ADJ	Degree=Pos	8 house	amod
8	house	house	NOUN	Number=Sing	1 working	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	work	gerund						as a cook; in the big house	vn employment-95.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent in house=Theme

Option 3 · ✓ the right answer

spinning

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	spinning	spin	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	root	root

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	spin	gerund							vn roll-51.3.1 «NP.theme V»: agent=Theme

Option 4

weaving cloth

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	weaving	weave	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	root	root
2	cloth	cloth	NOUN	Number=Sing	1 weaving	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	weave	gerund		cloth					vn build-26.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent cloth=Product

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/1965-pg7439-part24/e3/