Exam question 4 · Arabian Nights, The Fair Persian, part 46: Khacan buys a s…

Which quality did the merchant ascribe to the Persian slave in his description to Khacan?

Mova's choice: option 2 · The right answer: option 4 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: merchant · What happens: ascribe, describe · To what, where: quality, description

This is exam question 4 of lesson 206 «Arabian Nights, The Fair Persian, part 46: Khacan buys a slave for the king, and his son falls for her» 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 quality	det
2	quality	quality	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 ascribe	obj
3	did	do	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	6 ascribe	aux
4	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	5 merchant	det
5	merchant	merchant	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 ascribe	nsubj
6	ascribe	ascribe	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
7	to	to	ADP	_	10 slave	case
8	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	10 slave	det
9	Persian	persian	ADJ	Degree=Pos	10 slave	amod
10	slave	slave	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 ascribe	obl
11	in	in	ADP	_	13 description	case
12	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	13 description	nmod:poss
13	description	description	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 ascribe	obl
14	to	to	ADP	_	15 Khacan	case
15	Khacan	Khacan	PROPN	Number=Sing	13 description	nmod
16	?	?	PUNCT	_	6 ascribe	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	ascribe	past · do-support	the merchant	which quality		merchant's description to Khacan		to the Persian slave	tree rules
2	describe		merchant					to Khacan	nom description «communication transitive»: poss=agent to=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

Fitness to be a king's slave and to serve the palace well

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Fitness	fitness	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 slave	nsubj
2	to	to	PART	_	7 slave	mark
3	be	be	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	7 slave	cop
4	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	5 king	det
5	king	king	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 slave	nmod:poss
6	's	's	PART	_	5 king	case
7	slave	slave	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root
8	and	and	CCONJ	_	10 serve	cc
9	to	to	PART	_	10 serve	mark
10	serve	serve	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	7 slave	conj
11	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	12 palace	det
12	palace	palace	NOUN	Number=Sing	10 serve	obj
13	well	well	ADV	Degree=Pos	10 serve	advmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is a	to-infinitive	Fitness	a king's slave					tree rules
2	serve	to-infinitive	Fitness not said here	the palace				well property	vn masquerade-29.6-2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent palace=Attribute

Option 2 · ← Mova's choice

Her strong sense of duty

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Her	her	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	3 sense	nmod:poss
2	strong	strong	ADJ	Degree=Pos	3 sense	amod
3	sense	sense	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root
4	of	of	ADP	_	5 duty	case
5	duty	duty	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 sense	nmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	sense		Her = she	duty					nom sense «cognition transitive»: poss=agent of=patient

Option 3

Fitness to be a king's slave, being tall, young and graceful

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Fitness	fitness	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 slave	nsubj
2	to	to	PART	_	7 slave	mark
3	be	be	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	7 slave	cop
4	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	5 king	det
5	king	king	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 slave	nmod:poss
6	's	's	PART	_	5 king	case
7	slave	slave	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root
8	,	,	PUNCT	_	10 tall	punct
9	being	be	AUX	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	10 tall	cop
10	tall	tall	ADJ	Degree=Pos	7 slave	amod
11	,	,	PUNCT	_	12 young	punct
12	young	young	ADJ	Degree=Pos	10 tall	conj
13	and	and	CCONJ	_	14 graceful	cc
14	graceful	graceful	ADJ	Degree=Pos	10 tall	conj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	other	roles by
1	is a	to-infinitive	Fitness	a king's slave		tree rules
2	is	gerund			tall property	tree rules
3	be					tree rules
4	be					tree rules

Option 4 · ✓ the right answer

Fitness to be a king's slave

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Fitness	fitness	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root
2	to	to	PART	_	7 slave	mark
3	be	be	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	7 slave	cop
4	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	5 king	det
5	king	king	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 slave	nmod:poss
6	's	's	PART	_	5 king	case
7	slave	slave	NOUN	Number=Sing	1 Fitness	advcl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is a	to-infinitive		a king's slave					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/206-pg128-part46/e4/