Exam question 1 · Celtic Fairy Tales, Andrew Coffey, part 35: Ivan's honesty…

Which road did Ivan take in preference to the new road when journeying home?

Mova's choice: option 4 · The right answer: option 1 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: road · What happens: take in, journey · To what, where: preference, new road

This is exam question 1 of lesson 2016 «Celtic Fairy Tales, Andrew Coffey, part 35: Ivan's honesty and the lord's purse, then a haunted cabin and a man in a box» 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	Which	which	DET	PronType=Int	2 road	det
2	road	road	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 take	nsubj
3	did	do	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	5 take	aux
4	Ivan	Ivan	PROPN	Number=Sing	5 take	nsubj
5	take	take	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
6	in	in	ADP	_	5 take	compound:prt
7	preference	preference	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 take	obj
8	to	to	ADP	_	11 road	case
9	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	11 road	det
10	new	new	ADJ	Degree=Pos	11 road	amod
11	road	road	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 take	obl
12	when	when	ADV	PronType=Int	13 journeying	advmod
13	journeying	journey	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	5 take	advcl
14	home	home	ADV	_	13 journeying	advmod
15	?	?	PUNCT	_	5 take	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	take in	past · do-support	which road	preference		the new road			vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent preference=Theme to road=Destination
2	journey	gerund	which road not said here					home property	vn run-51.3.2-1 «NP V»: agent=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 · ✓ the right answer

the old road, which he kept to throughout

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	3 road	det
2	old	old	ADJ	Degree=Pos	3 road	amod
3	road	road	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 kept	nsubj:outer
4	,	,	PUNCT	_	7 kept	punct
5	which	which	PRON	PronType=Rel	7 kept	obj
6	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	7 kept	nsubj
7	kept	keep	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
8	to	to	PART	_	9 throughout	mark
9	throughout	throughout	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	7 kept	xcomp

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	keep	past	the old road						tree rules
2	throughout	to-infinitive	the old road not said here						tree rules

Option 2

the wide river road through the hills, which he took all the way to the lord's gate

The tree, 18 words

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	4 road	det
2	wide	wide	ADJ	Degree=Pos	4 road	amod
3	river	river	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 road	compound
4	road	road	NOUN	Number=Sing	11 took	nsubj
5	through	through	ADP	_	7 hills	case
6	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	7 hills	det
7	hills	hill	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 road	nmod
8	,	,	PUNCT	_	11 took	punct
9	which	which	PRON	PronType=Rel	11 took	nsubj
10	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	11 took	nsubj
11	took	take	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
12	all	all	DET	PronType=Tot	14 way	det:predet
13	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	14 way	det
14	way	way	NOUN	Number=Sing	11 took	obj
15	to	to	ADP	_	19 gate	case
16	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	17 lord	det
17	lord	lord	NOUN	Number=Sing	19 gate	nmod:poss
18	's	's	PART	_	17 lord	case
19	gate	gate	NOUN	Number=Sing	11 took	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	take	past	the wide river road through the hills	all way		the lord's gate			vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent way=Theme to gate=Destination

Option 3

the new road, which he took at once

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	3 road	det
2	new	new	ADJ	Degree=Pos	3 road	amod
3	road	road	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 took	nsubj
4	,	,	PUNCT	_	7 took	punct
5	which	which	PRON	PronType=Rel	7 took	nsubj
6	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	7 took	nsubj
7	took	take	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
8	at	at	ADP	_	9 once	case
9	once	once	ADV	NumForm=Word NumType=Mult	7 took	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	take	past	the new road						vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP PP.source NP.asset»: agent=Agent at once=Asset

Option 4 · ← Mova's choice

the new road, which he had been told was faster and shorter than the old one

The tree, 16 words

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	3 road	det
2	new	new	ADJ	Degree=Pos	3 road	amod
3	road	road	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root
4	,	,	PUNCT	_	9 told	punct
5	which	which	PRON	PronType=Rel	9 told	nsubj:pass
6	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	9 told	nsubj
7	had	have	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	9 told	aux
8	been	be	AUX	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part	9 told	aux:pass
9	told	tell	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	3 road	acl:relcl
10	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	11 faster	cop
11	faster	fast	ADV	Degree=Cmp	9 told	advmod
12	and	and	CCONJ	_	13 shorter	cc
13	shorter	short	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	11 faster	conj
14	than	than	ADP	_	17 one	case
15	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	17 one	det
16	old	old	ADJ	Degree=Pos	17 one	amod
17	one	one	NOUN	Number=Sing	13 shorter	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	what, whom	other	roles by
1	tell speech: assert	past · perfect · passive	the new road		vn transfer_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: subject=Recipient
2	is	past		fast property	tree rules
3	be			than the old one	tree rules

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/2016-pg7885-part35/e1/