Exam question 3 · More English Fairy Tales, Yallery Brown: Tom lets the imp…

Which curse does Yallery Brown lay upon Tom before he departs?

Mova's choice: option 3 · The right answer: option 2 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: curse, Yallery · What happens: do, lie, depart · To what, where: Tom

This is exam question 3 of lesson 240 «More English Fairy Tales, Yallery Brown: Tom lets the imp out and is cursed» 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 curse	det
2	curse	curse	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 does	nsubj
3	does	do	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
4	Yallery	Yallery	PROPN	Number=Sing	6 lay	nsubj
5	Brown	Brown	PROPN	Number=Sing	4 Yallery	flat
6	lay	lie	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 does	ccomp
7	upon	upon	ADP	_	8 Tom	case
8	Tom	Tom	PROPN	Number=Sing	6 lay	obl
9	before	before	SCONJ	_	11 departs	mark
10	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	11 departs	nsubj
11	departs	depart	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	6 lay	advcl
12	?	?	PUNCT	_	3 does	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	where	roles by
1	do	present	which curse		tree rules
2	lie	past	Yallery	Tom	vn assuming_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent upon tom=Location
3	depart	present	Yallery		vn escape-51.1-1-1 «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

a born fool's luck for all his days

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	3 fool	det
2	born	bear	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	3 fool	amod
3	fool	fool	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 luck	nmod:poss
4	's	's	PART	_	3 fool	case
5	luck	luck	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root
6	for	for	ADP	_	9 days	case
7	all	all	DET	PronType=Tot	9 days	det:predet
8	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	9 days	nmod:poss
9	days	day	NOUN	Number=Plur	5 luck	nmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	bear	participle							vn admire-31.2 «NP V that S»: agent=Experiencer

Option 2 · ✓ the right answer

a born fool's luck

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	3 fool	det
2	born	bear	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	3 fool	amod
3	fool	fool	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 luck	nmod:poss
4	's	's	PART	_	3 fool	case
5	luck	luck	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	bear	participle							vn admire-31.2 «NP V that S»: agent=Experiencer

Option 3 · ← Mova's choice

bad luck

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	bad	bad	ADJ	Degree=Pos	2 luck	amod
2	luck	luck	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root

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

Option 4

a cruel fool's curse

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	3 fool	det
2	cruel	cruel	ADJ	Degree=Pos	3 fool	amod
3	fool	fool	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 curse	nmod:poss
4	's	's	PART	_	3 fool	case
5	curse	curse	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	curse		a cruel fool						nom curse «communication transitive»: poss=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/240-pg14241-part7/e3/