Exam question 3 · Andersen's Fairy Tales, The Steadfast Tin Soldier: the sol…

What opinion did Father Snail express regarding the quality of their present dwelling?

Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 3 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: opinion, present · What happens: do, regard, dwell · To what, where: Father express

This is exam question 3 of lesson 300 «Andersen's Fairy Tales, The Steadfast Tin Soldier: the soldier is found again in a garden, then The Happy Family begins» 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	PRON	PronType=Int	3 did	obj
2	opinion	opinion	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 did	nsubj
3	did	do	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
4	Father	Father	PROPN	Number=Sing	6 express	compound
5	Snail	Snail	PROPN	Number=Sing	4 Father	flat
6	express	express	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 did	obj
7	regarding	regard	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	9 quality	case
8	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	9 quality	det
9	quality	quality	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 express	nmod
10	of	of	ADP	_	12 present	case
11	their	their	PRON	Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	12 present	nmod:poss
12	present	present	NOUN	Number=Sing	9 quality	nmod
13	dwelling	dwell	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	12 present	acl
14	?	?	PUNCT	_	3 did	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	other	roles by
1	do	past	opinion	Father express	regard the quality of their present	tree rules
2	regard	gerund				vn assessment-34.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent
3	dwell	gerund	their present not said here			vn exist-47.1 «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 · ← Mova's choice

Ours is best

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Ours	our	PRON	Number=Plur Person=1 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	3 best	nsubj
2	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	3 best	cop
3	best	good	ADJ	Degree=Sup	root	root

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is	present	Ours					good property	tree rules

Option 2

Nothing beats a dry hedge bank

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Nothing	nothing	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Neg	2 beats	nsubj
2	beats	beat	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	6 bank	det
4	dry	dry	ADJ	Degree=Pos	6 bank	amod
5	hedge	hedge	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 bank	compound
6	bank	bank	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 beats	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	beat	present	Nothing	a dry hedge bank					vn sound_emission-43.2 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location bank=Theme

Option 3 · ✓ the right answer

No place can be better than ours

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	No	no	DET	PronType=Neg	2 place	det
2	place	place	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 better	nsubj
3	can	can	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	5 better	aux
4	be	be	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	5 better	cop
5	better	good	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	root	root
6	than	than	ADP	_	7 ours	case
7	ours	our	PRON	Number=Plur Person=1 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	5 better	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is	can	no place					than ours; good property	tree rules

Option 4

Our house is the finest of all

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Our	our	PRON	Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=1 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	2 house	nmod:poss
2	house	house	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 finest	nsubj
3	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	5 finest	cop
4	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	5 finest	det
5	finest	fine	ADJ	Degree=Sup	root	root
6	of	of	ADP	_	7 all	case
7	all	all	DET	PronType=Tot	5 finest	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is	present	Our house					of all; fine property	tree rules

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/300-pg1597-part27/e3/