Test 9 · ★ · Persian Tales, The Sultan Kosrouschah, part 67: three sist…

and they told the Sultan it was a puppy?!

Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 2 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: they, Sultan · What happens: tell, be · To what, where: Sultan, puppy · Speech: someone speaks here

This is test 9 · ★ of lesson 227 «Persian Tales, The Sultan Kosrouschah, part 67: three sisters' wishes come true, and the cradles float away» of the books course of Mova's primary school. 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	and	and	CCONJ	_	3 told	cc
2	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	3 told	nsubj
3	told	tell	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
4	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	5 Sultan	det
5	Sultan	Sultan	PROPN	Number=Sing	3 told	iobj
6	it	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	9 puppy	nsubj
7	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	9 puppy	cop
8	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	9 puppy	det
9	puppy	puppy	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 told	ccomp
10	?!	?!	PUNCT	_	3 told	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	tell speech: assert	past	they		the Sultan				vn transfer_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent sultan=Recipient
2	is a	past	Sultan	a puppy					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 · ← Mova's choice

nah, they said it was a goat

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	nah	nah	INTJ	_	4 said	discourse
2	,	,	PUNCT	_	1 nah	punct
3	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	4 said	nsubj
4	said	say	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
5	it	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	8 goat	nsubj
6	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	8 goat	cop
7	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	8 goat	det
8	goat	goat	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 said	ccomp

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	say speech: assert	past	they						vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent
2	is a	past	it	a goat					tree rules

Option 2 · ✓ the right answer

yeah, that's what they said

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	yeah	yeah	INTJ	_	5 what	discourse
2	,	,	PUNCT	_	5 what	punct
3	that	that	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Dem	5 what	nsubj
4	's	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	5 what	cop
5	what	what	PRON	PronType=Int	root	root
6	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	7 said	nsubj
7	said	say	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	5 what	acl:relcl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is a	present	that						tree rules
2	say speech: assert	past	they						vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent

Option 3

yeah, they said a lamb

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	yeah	yeah	INTJ	_	4 said	discourse
2	,	,	PUNCT	_	1 yeah	punct
3	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	4 said	nsubj
4	said	say	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
5	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	6 lamb	det
6	lamb	lamb	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 said	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	say speech: assert	past	they	a lamb					vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent lamb=Topic

Option 4

nah, they lied

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	nah	nah	INTJ	_	4 lied	discourse
2	,	,	PUNCT	_	1 nah	punct
3	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	4 lied	nsubj
4	lied	lie	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	lie	past	they						vn assuming_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent

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/227-pg128-part67/t9/