Exam question 4 · Scottish Fairy and Folk Tales, The Black Bull of Norroway,…

What fate befell the old washerwife at the close of the tale?

Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 2 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: fate · What happens: befall · To what, where: old washerwife, close

This is exam question 4 of lesson 238 «Scottish Fairy and Folk Tales, The Black Bull of Norroway, the youngest sister rides off on the Black Bull and wins back her knight» 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 fate	det
2	fate	fate	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 befell	nsubj
3	befell	befall	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
4	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	6 washerwife	det
5	old	old	ADJ	Degree=Pos	6 washerwife	amod
6	washerwife	washerwife	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 befell	obj
7	at	at	ADP	_	9 close	case
8	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	9 close	det
9	close	close	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 befell	obl
10	of	of	ADP	_	12 tale	case
11	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	12 tale	det
12	tale	tale	NOUN	Number=Sing	9 close	nmod
13	?	?	PUNCT	_	3 befell	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	befall	past	what fate	the old washerwife		the close of the tale			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

She was hanged

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	She	she	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	3 hanged	nsubj
2	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 hanged	aux:pass
3	hanged	hange	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	root	root

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	hange	past · passive		She					tree rules

Option 2 · ✓ the right answer

She was burnt

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	She	she	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	3 burnt	nsubj
2	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 burnt	aux:pass
3	burnt	burnt	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	root	root

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	burnt	past · passive		She					tree rules

Option 3

Hanged

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Hanged	Hanged	PROPN	Number=Sing	root	root

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

Option 4

She was drowned

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	She	she	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	3 drowned	nsubj:pass
2	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 drowned	aux:pass
3	drowned	drown	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	root	root

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	drown	past · passive		She					vn poison-42.2 «NP V NP»: subject=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/238-pg14241-part5/e4/