Exam question 3 · English Fairy Tales, The Hedley Kow: a poor old woman's bl…

By what means did the old woman intend to employ the stone within her dwelling?

Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 1 · right ✓ · Who acts: old woman · What happens: mean, intend, employ · To what, where: stone

This is exam question 3 of lesson 243 «English Fairy Tales, The Hedley Kow: a poor old woman's black pot turns from gold to silver to iron to stone, and then into a horse-sized kow» 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	By	by	ADP	_	2 what	case
2	what	what	PRON	PronType=Rel	8 intend	obl
3	means	mean	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	2 what	acl:relcl
4	did	do	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	8 intend	aux
5	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	7 woman	det
6	old	old	ADJ	Degree=Pos	7 woman	amod
7	woman	woman	NOUN	Number=Sing	8 intend	nsubj
8	intend	intend	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
9	to	to	PART	_	10 employ	mark
10	employ	employ	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	8 intend	xcomp
11	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	12 stone	det
12	stone	stone	NOUN	Number=Sing	10 employ	obj
13	within	within	ADP	_	15 dwelling	case
14	her	her	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	15 dwelling	nmod:poss
15	dwelling	dwelling	NOUN	Number=Sing	10 employ	obl
16	?	?	PUNCT	_	8 intend	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	other	roles by
1	mean	present				vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V S»: agent=Agent
2	intend	past · do-support	the old woman			vn intend-61.2-1-1 «NP V S_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Topic
3	employ not said to happen	to-infinitive	the old woman not said here	the stone	within woman's dwelling	vn hire-13.5.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent stone=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 · ← Mova's choice · ✓ the right answer

as a doorstop

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	as	as	ADP	_	3 doorstop	case
2	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	3 doorstop	det
3	doorstop	doorstop	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root

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

Option 2

a weight

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	2 weight	det
2	weight	weight	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root

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

Option 3

to hold the gate

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	to	to	PART	_	2 hold	mark
2	hold	hold	VERB	Mood=Imp VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	4 gate	det
4	gate	gate	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 hold	obj

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

Option 4

a gate

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	2 gate	det
2	gate	gate	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root

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

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/243-pg14241-part10/e3/