Exam question 2 · Aesop's Fables, The Cat and the Mice, part 15: a Cat hangs…

How did the Mouse respond to the Cat's deception?

Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 3 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: Cat · What happens: do, deceive · To what, where: Mouse respond

This is exam question 2 of lesson 394 «Aesop's Fables, The Cat and the Mice, part 15: a Cat hangs from a peg, pretends to be dead, and fails to lure the Mice out» 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	How	how	ADV	PronType=Int	2 did	advmod
2	did	do	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	5 respond	det
4	Mouse	mouse	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 respond	compound
5	respond	respond	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 did	obj
6	to	to	ADP	_	10 deception	case
7	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	8 Cat	det
8	Cat	cat	NOUN	Number=Sing	10 deception	nmod:poss
9	's	's	PART	_	8 Cat	case
10	deception	deception	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 did	obl
11	?	?	PUNCT	_	2 did	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	do	past		the Mouse respond				to the Cat's deception	vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent respond=Eventuality
2	deceive		the Cat						nom deception «communication transitive»: 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 · ← Mova's choice

he declined to approach her and warned the other mice to stay away

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	2 declined	nsubj
2	declined	decline	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	to	to	PART	_	4 approach	mark
4	approach	approach	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	2 declined	xcomp
5	her	she	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	4 approach	obj
6	and	and	CCONJ	_	7 warned	cc
7	warned	warn	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	2 declined	conj
8	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	10 mice	det
9	other	other	ADJ	Degree=Pos	10 mice	amod
10	mice	mouse	NOUN	Number=Plur	7 warned	obj
11	to	to	PART	_	12 stay	mark
12	stay	stay	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	7 warned	ccomp
13	away	away	ADV	_	12 stay	advmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	other	roles by
1	decline	past	he				vn reject-77.2 «NP V S_ING»: agent=Agent clause=Theme
2	not approach	to-infinitive	he not said here	her = she			vn confront-98 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent she=Theme
3	warn speech: warn	past	he not said here		the other mice		vn advise-37.9-1 «NP V NP how S_INF»: agent=Agent mouse=Recipient clause=Topic
4	stay away	to-infinitive				away property	vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme

Option 2

he declined to approach her, though the cheese smelled very tempting

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	2 declined	nsubj
2	declined	decline	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	to	to	PART	_	4 approach	mark
4	approach	approach	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	2 declined	xcomp
5	her	she	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	4 approach	obj
6	,	,	PUNCT	_	10 smelled	punct
7	though	though	SCONJ	_	10 smelled	mark
8	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	9 cheese	det
9	cheese	cheese	NOUN	Number=Sing	10 smelled	nsubj
10	smelled	smell	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	2 declined	conj
11	very	very	ADV	_	12 tempting	advmod
12	tempting	tempting	NOUN	Number=Sing	10 smelled	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	roles by
1	decline	past	he		vn reject-77.2 «NP V S_ING»: agent=Agent clause=Theme
2	not approach	to-infinitive	he not said here	her = she	vn confront-98 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent she=Theme
3	smell	past	the cheese	tempting	vn see-30.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer tempting=Stimulus

Option 3 · ✓ the right answer

he declined to approach her

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	2 declined	nsubj
2	declined	decline	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	to	to	PART	_	4 approach	mark
4	approach	approach	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	2 declined	xcomp
5	her	she	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	4 approach	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	decline	past	he						vn reject-77.2 «NP V S_ING»: agent=Agent clause=Theme
2	not approach	to-infinitive	he not said here	her = she					vn confront-98 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent she=Theme

Option 4

he approached her slowly

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	2 approached	nsubj
2	approached	approach	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	her	she	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	2 approached	obj
4	slowly	slowly	ADV	_	2 approached	advmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	approach	past	he	her = she				slowly property	vn confront-98 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent she=Theme

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/394-pg21-part15/e2/