Exam question 3 · Aesop's Fables, The Fox and the Hedgehog: a hurt Fox refus…
What reason did the Fox give for declining the assistance?
Mova's choice: option 4 · The right answer: option 2 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: reason, Fox · What happens: do, give, decline · To what, where: assistance
This is exam question 3 of lesson 396 «Aesop's Fables, The Fox and the Hedgehog: a hurt Fox refuses a kind Hedgehog's offer to shoo away his flies» 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 | reason | reason | NOUN | Number=Sing | 3 did | nsubj |
| 3 | did | do | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 4 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 5 Fox | det |
| 5 | Fox | fox | NOUN | Number=Sing | 6 give | nsubj |
| 6 | give | give | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 3 did | ccomp |
| 7 | for | for | SCONJ | _ | 8 declining | mark |
| 8 | declining | decline | VERB | Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part | 6 give | advcl |
| 9 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 10 assistance | det |
| 10 | assistance | assistance | NOUN | Number=Sing | 8 declining | obj |
| 11 | ? | ? | PUNCT | _ | 3 did | punct |
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | do | past | reason | tree rules | |||||
| 2 | give | present | the Fox | vn break_down-45.8 «NP V»: agent=Patient | |||||
| 3 | decline | gerund | the Fox not said here | the assistance | vn reject-77.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent assistance=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
Flies were fed
The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)
| # | word | lemma | UPOS | features | head | relation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Flies | fly | NOUN | Number=Plur | 3 fed | nsubj:pass |
| 2 | were | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 3 fed | aux:pass |
| 3 | fed | feed | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | root | root |
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | feed | past · passive | Flies | vn feeding-39.7 «NP V NP»: subject=Recipient |
Option 2 · ✓ the right answer
The flies were already satiated
The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)
| # | word | lemma | UPOS | features | head | relation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 2 flies | det |
| 2 | flies | fly | NOUN | Number=Plur | 5 satiated | nsubj:pass |
| 3 | were | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 5 satiated | aux:pass |
| 4 | already | already | ADV | _ | 5 satiated | advmod |
| 5 | satiated | satiate | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | root | root |
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | satiate | past · passive | the flies | vn satisfy-55.7 «NP V NP»: subject=Theme |
Option 3
They were full
The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)
| # | word | lemma | UPOS | features | head | relation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | They | they | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 3 full | nsubj |
| 2 | were | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 3 full | cop |
| 3 | full | full | ADJ | Degree=Pos | root | root |
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | is | past | They | full property | tree rules |
Option 4 · ← Mova's choice
He had already been bitten
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 | 5 bitten | nsubj |
| 2 | had | have | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 5 bitten | aux |
| 3 | already | already | ADV | _ | 5 bitten | advmod |
| 4 | been | be | AUX | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part | 5 bitten | aux:pass |
| 5 | bitten | bite | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | root | root |
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | bite | past · perfect · passive | He | vn swat-18.2 «NP V NP»: subject=Patient |
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/396-pg21-part17/e3/