Exam question 4 · English Fairy Tales, The Three Feathers: the laundry-maid'…

What instruction did the bird-husband give to the wife concerning the men's savings?

Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 4 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: instruction, bird husband, wife, men · What happens: do, give, concern, save · To what, where: wife, savings

This is exam question 4 of lesson 241 «English Fairy Tales, The Three Feathers: the laundry-maid's spell sends the men into the pond until her bird-husband comes to take her away» 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 instruction	det
2	instruction	instruction	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 did	nsubj
3	did	do	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
4	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	7 husband	det
5	bird	bird	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 husband	compound
6	-	-	PUNCT	_	5 bird	punct
7	husband	husband	NOUN	Number=Sing	8 give	nsubj
8	give	give	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	3 did	parataxis
9	to	to	ADP	_	11 wife	case
10	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	11 wife	det
11	wife	wife	NOUN	Number=Sing	8 give	obl
12	concerning	concern	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	11 wife	acl
13	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	14 men	det
14	men	man	NOUN	Number=Plur	16 savings	nmod:poss
15	's	's	PART	_	14 men	case
16	savings	savings	NOUN	Number=Ptan	12 concerning	obj
17	?	?	PUNCT	_	3 did	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	roles by
1	do	past	what instruction			vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent
2	give	present	the bird husband		the wife	vn give-13.1-1 «NP V PP.recipient»: agent=Agent to wife=Recipient
3	concern	gerund	the wife not said here	the men's savings		vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Stimulus savings=Experiencer
4	save		the men			nom savings «possession transitive»: poss=agent

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

to hand them to the cook

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	to	to	PART	_	2 hand	mark
2	hand	hand	VERB	Mood=Imp VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	them	they	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	2 hand	obj
4	to	to	ADP	_	6 cook	case
5	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	6 cook	det
6	cook	cook	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 hand	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	hand	to-infinitive		them = they		the cook			vn send-11.1-1 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent they=Theme to cook=Destination

Option 2

to give each one his share

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	to	to	PART	_	2 give	mark
2	give	give	VERB	Mood=Imp VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	each	each	DET	PronType=Tot	4 one	det
4	one	one	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 give	obj
5	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	6 share	nmod:poss
6	share	share	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 give	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	give	to-infinitive		each one					vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent one=Recipient share=Theme
2	share		his = he						nom share «possession transitive»: poss=agent

Option 3

to keep them

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	to	to	PART	_	2 keep	mark
2	keep	keep	VERB	Mood=Imp VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	them	they	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	2 keep	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	keep	to-infinitive		them = they					vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent they=Theme

Option 4 · ✓ the right answer

to restore them to each man

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	to	to	PART	_	2 restore	mark
2	restore	restore	VERB	Mood=Imp VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	them	they	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	2 restore	obj
4	to	to	ADP	_	6 man	case
5	each	each	DET	PronType=Tot	6 man	det
6	man	man	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 restore	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	restore	to-infinitive		them = they	each man				vn contribute-13.2 «NP V NP PP.recipient»: agent=Agent they=Theme to man=Recipient

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/241-pg14241-part8/e4/