Exam question 2 · Andersen's Fairy Tales, The Little Match Girl: a poor girl…

What was the girl's stated purpose in striking the matches against the wall?

Mova's choice: option 2 · The right answer: option 2 · right ✓ · Who acts: stated purpose, girl · What happens: be, state, strike, purpose · To what, where: matches

This is exam question 2 of lesson 306 «Andersen's Fairy Tales, The Little Match Girl: a poor girl freezes on New Year's Eve» 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	root	root
2	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	1 What	cop
3	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	4 girl	det
4	girl	girl	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 purpose	nmod:poss
5	's	's	PART	_	4 girl	case
6	stated	state	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	7 purpose	amod
7	purpose	purpose	NOUN	Number=Sing	1 What	nsubj
8	in	in	SCONJ	_	9 striking	mark
9	striking	strike	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	7 purpose	acl
10	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	11 matches	det
11	matches	match	NOUN	Number=Plur	9 striking	obj
12	against	against	ADP	_	14 wall	case
13	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	14 wall	det
14	wall	wall	NOUN	Number=Sing	11 matches	nmod
15	?	?	PUNCT	_	1 What	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	other	roles by
1	is a	past	the girl's stated purpose			tree rules
2	state speech: other	participle				vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent
3	strike	gerund	the girl's stated purpose not said here	the matches	against the wall	vn hit-18.1-1 «NP V NP PP»: agent=Agent match=Instrument against wall=Patient
4	purpose		the girl			nom purpose «cognition intransitive»: 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

to dry her hands

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	to	to	PART	_	2 dry	mark
2	dry	dry	VERB	Mood=Imp VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	her	her	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	4 hands	nmod:poss
4	hands	hand	NOUN	Number=Plur	2 dry	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	dry	to-infinitive		her hands					vn other_cos-45.4-1 «NP V NP ADJ»: agent=Patient hand=Result

Option 2 · ← Mova's choice · ✓ the right answer

to warm her fingers

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	to	to	PART	_	2 warm	mark
2	warm	warm	VERB	Mood=Imp VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	her	her	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	4 fingers	nmod:poss
4	fingers	finger	NOUN	Number=Plur	2 warm	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	warm	to-infinitive		her fingers					vn other_cos-45.4 «NP V NP.patient»: agent=Agent finger=Patient

Option 3

to light the stove

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

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

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	light	to-infinitive		the stove					vn preparing-26.3-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent stove=Product

Option 4

to see better

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	to	to	PART	_	2 see	mark
2	see	see	VERB	Mood=Imp VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	better	well	ADV	Degree=Cmp	2 see	advmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	see	to-infinitive						well property	vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer

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/306-pg1597-part33/e2/