Exam question 3 · Tanglewood Tales, The Pomegranate Seeds, part 33: Ceres te…

How does the narrator characterise Proserpina's endurance of her fast in the palace?

Mova's choice: option 4 · The right answer: option 2 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: narrator · What happens: characterise · To what, where: endurance, palace

This is exam question 3 of lesson 2074 «Tanglewood Tales, The Pomegranate Seeds, part 33: Ceres tests the baby in the fire, then lets the earth go barren» 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	How	how	ADV	PronType=Int	5 characterise	advmod
2	does	do	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	5 characterise	aux
3	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	4 narrator	det
4	narrator	narrator	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 characterise	nsubj
5	characterise	characterise	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
6	Proserpina	Proserpina	PROPN	Number=Sing	8 endurance	nmod:poss
7	's	's	PART	_	6 Proserpina	case
8	endurance	endurance	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 characterise	obj
9	of	of	ADP	_	10 her	case
10	her	she	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	8 endurance	nmod
11	fast	fast	ADV	Degree=Pos	5 characterise	advmod
12	in	in	ADP	_	14 palace	case
13	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	14 palace	det
14	palace	palace	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 characterise	obl
15	?	?	PUNCT	_	5 characterise	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	characterise	present · do-support	the narrator	Proserpina's endurance of Proserpina		the palace		fast property	tree rules

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

As weakness

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	As	as	ADP	_	2 weakness	case
2	weakness	weakness	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root

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

Option 2 · ✓ the right answer

As a remarkable and creditable self-restraint

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	As	as	ADP	_	8 restraint	case
2	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	8 restraint	det
3	remarkable	remarkable	ADJ	Degree=Pos	8 restraint	amod
4	and	and	CCONJ	_	5 creditable	cc
5	creditable	creditable	ADJ	Degree=Pos	3 remarkable	conj
6	self	self	NOUN	Number=Sing	8 restraint	compound
7	-	-	PUNCT	_	6 self	punct
8	restraint	restraint	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root

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

Option 3

As an ordinary, expected good manner

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	As	as	ADP	_	7 manner	case
2	an	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	7 manner	det
3	ordinary	ordinary	ADJ	Degree=Pos	5 expected	compound
4	,	,	PUNCT	_	3 ordinary	punct
5	expected	expect	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	7 manner	amod
6	good	good	ADJ	Degree=Pos	7 manner	amod
7	manner	manner	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	expect	participle							vn conjecture-29.5-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent

Option 4 · ← Mova's choice

As a sad and pitiable form of hunger

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	As	as	ADP	_	6 form	case
2	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	6 form	det
3	sad	sad	ADJ	Degree=Pos	6 form	amod
4	and	and	CCONJ	_	5 pitiable	cc
5	pitiable	pitiable	ADJ	Degree=Pos	3 sad	conj
6	form	form	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root
7	of	of	ADP	_	8 hunger	case
8	hunger	hunger	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 form	nmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	form			hunger					nom form «communication transitive»: of=patient

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/2074-pg976-part33/e3/