Exam question 3 · Aesop for Children, The Woodman and Mercury: an honest woo…

What is the moral conveyed by the tale of the Woodman and Mercury?

Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 1 · right ✓ · Who acts: moral, Woodman · What happens: be, convey, tell · To what, where: moral · Speech: someone speaks here

This is exam question 3 of lesson 372 «Aesop for Children, The Woodman and Mercury: an honest woodman gets all three axes» 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	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	1 What	cop
3	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	4 moral	det
4	moral	moral	NOUN	Number=Sing	1 What	nsubj
5	conveyed	convey	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	4 moral	acl
6	by	by	ADP	_	8 tale	case
7	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	8 tale	det
8	tale	tale	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 conveyed	obl
9	of	of	ADP	_	11 Woodman	case
10	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	11 Woodman	det
11	Woodman	Woodman	PROPN	Number=Sing	8 tale	nmod
12	and	and	CCONJ	_	13 Mercury	cc
13	Mercury	Mercury	PROPN	Number=Sing	11 Woodman	conj
14	?	?	PUNCT	_	1 What	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	other	roles by
1	is a	present	the moral			tree rules
2	convey	participle		the moral not said here	by the tale of the Woodman and Mercury	vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent
3	tell		the Woodman and Mercury			nom tale «communication intransitive»: of=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 · ✓ the right answer

Honesty is the best policy.

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Honesty	honesty	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 policy	nsubj
2	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	5 policy	cop
3	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	5 policy	det
4	best	good	ADJ	Degree=Sup	5 policy	amod
5	policy	policy	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root
6	.	.	PUNCT	_	5 policy	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is a	present	Honesty	the best policy					tree rules

Option 2

Patience is a true virtue.

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Patience	patience	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 virtue	nsubj
2	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	5 virtue	cop
3	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	5 virtue	det
4	true	true	ADJ	Degree=Pos	5 virtue	amod
5	virtue	virtue	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root
6	.	.	PUNCT	_	5 virtue	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is a	present	Patience	a true virtue					tree rules

Option 3

Greed never pays off well.

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Greed	greed	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 pays	nsubj
2	never	never	ADV	PronType=Neg	3 pays	advmod
3	pays	pay	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
4	off	off	ADP	_	3 pays	compound:prt
5	well	well	ADV	Degree=Pos	3 pays	advmod
6	.	.	PUNCT	_	3 pays	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	not pay off	present	Greed					well property	vn pay-68-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent

Option 4

Honesty is the best policy in all things and at all times.

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Honesty	honesty	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 policy	nsubj
2	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	5 policy	cop
3	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	5 policy	det
4	best	good	ADJ	Degree=Sup	5 policy	amod
5	policy	policy	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root
6	in	in	ADP	_	8 things	case
7	all	all	DET	PronType=Tot	8 things	det
8	things	thing	NOUN	Number=Plur	5 policy	nmod
9	and	and	CCONJ	_	12 times	cc
10	at	at	ADP	_	12 times	case
11	all	all	DET	PronType=Tot	12 times	det
12	times	time	NOUN	Number=Plur	8 things	conj
13	.	.	PUNCT	_	5 policy	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is a	present	Honesty	the best policy		all things and all times			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/372-pg19994-part11/e3/