Exam question 3 · Aesop's Fables, The Cat and the Birds: a cat posing as a d…

State the moral conveyed by the fable of the Fighting Cocks and the Eagle, as expressed in the text.

Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 2 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: you · What happens: state, convey, express · To what, where: moral, text

This is exam question 3 of lesson 388 «Aesop's Fables, The Cat and the Birds: a cat posing as a doctor is sent packing» 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	State	state	VERB	Mood=Imp VerbForm=Fin	root	root
2	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	3 moral	det
3	moral	moral	NOUN	Number=Sing	1 State	obj
4	conveyed	convey	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	3 moral	acl
5	by	by	ADP	_	7 fable	case
6	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	7 fable	det
7	fable	fable	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 conveyed	obl
8	of	of	ADP	_	11 Cocks	case
9	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	11 Cocks	det
10	Fighting	fighting	NOUN	Number=Sing	11 Cocks	compound
11	Cocks	cock	NOUN	Number=Plur	7 fable	nmod
12	and	and	CCONJ	_	14 Eagle	cc
13	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	14 Eagle	det
14	Eagle	Eagle	PROPN	Number=Sing	11 Cocks	conj
15	,	,	PUNCT	_	17 expressed	punct
16	as	as	SCONJ	_	17 expressed	mark
17	expressed	express	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	1 State	parataxis
18	in	in	ADP	_	20 text	case
19	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	20 text	det
20	text	text	NOUN	Number=Sing	17 expressed	obl
21	.	.	PUNCT	_	1 State	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	other	roles by
1	state speech: other	imperative	you not said here	the moral			vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent moral=Topic
2	convey	participle		the moral not said here		by the fable of the Fighting Cocks and the Eagle	vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent
3	express	participle			the text		vn reflexive_appearance-48.1.2 «NP V NP»: agent=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

Fight hard

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Fight	fight	VERB	Mood=Imp VerbForm=Fin	root	root
2	hard	hard	ADV	Degree=Pos	1 Fight	advmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	fight	imperative	you not said here					hard property	vn battle-36.4-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent

Option 2 · ✓ the right answer

Pride goes before destruction

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Pride	pride	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 goes	nsubj
2	goes	go	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	before	before	ADP	_	4 destruction	case
4	destruction	destruction	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 goes	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	go	present	Pride			destruction			vn occur-48.3-2 «NP V PP»: agent=Theme before destruction=Location

Option 3

Always fight to win the battle

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Always	always	ADV	PronType=Tot	2 fight	advmod
2	fight	fight	VERB	Mood=Imp VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	to	to	PART	_	4 win	mark
4	win	win	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	2 fight	advcl
5	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	6 battle	det
6	battle	battle	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 win	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	fight	imperative	you not said here					always property	vn battle-36.4-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent
2	win	to-infinitive	you not said here	the battle					vn succeed-74-2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent battle=Eventuality

Option 4

Pride is bad

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Pride	pride	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 bad	nsubj
2	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	3 bad	cop
3	bad	bad	ADJ	Degree=Pos	root	root

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is	present	Pride					bad 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/388-pg21-part9/e3/