Exam question 2 · Russian Folk-Tales, Vasilissa the Beautiful: the skull bur…

Identify the agent through whose action the stepmother and stepsisters perished, according to the narrative.

Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 3 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: you, stepmother · What happens: identify, perish, accord · To what, where: agent, action, narrative

This is exam question 2 of lesson 443 «Russian Folk-Tales, Vasilissa the Beautiful: the skull burns the stepmother, and Vasilissa becomes the king's wife» 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	Identify	identify	VERB	Mood=Imp VerbForm=Fin	root	root
2	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	3 agent	det
3	agent	agent	NOUN	Number=Sing	1 Identify	obj
4	through	through	ADP	_	6 action	case
5	whose	whose	PRON	Poss=Yes PronType=Rel	6 action	nmod:poss
6	action	action	NOUN	Number=Sing	1 Identify	obl
7	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	8 stepmother	det
8	stepmother	stepmother	NOUN	Number=Sing	11 perished	nsubj
9	and	and	CCONJ	_	10 stepsisters	cc
10	stepsisters	stepsister	NOUN	Number=Plur	8 stepmother	conj
11	perished	perish	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	6 action	acl:relcl
12	,	,	PUNCT	_	13 according	punct
13	according	accord	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	1 Identify	advcl
14	to	to	ADP	_	16 narrative	case
15	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	16 narrative	det
16	narrative	narrative	NOUN	Number=Sing	13 according	obl
17	.	.	PUNCT	_	1 Identify	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	other	roles by
1	identify	imperative	you not said here	the agent	action		vn characterize-29.2-1-1 «NP V NP S_ING»: agent=Agent agent=Theme
2	perish	past	the stepmother and stepsisters	action not said here			tree rules
3	accord	gerund	you not said here			to the narrative goal	vn future_having-13.3 «NP V NP PP.goal»: agent=Agent to narrative=Goal

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 skull with blazing eyes that came from the Baba Yaga's yard

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	2 skull	det
2	skull	skull	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 came	nsubj
3	with	with	ADP	_	5 eyes	case
4	blazing	blaze	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	5 eyes	amod
5	eyes	eye	NOUN	Number=Plur	2 skull	nmod
6	that	that	PRON	PronType=Rel	7 came	nsubj
7	came	come	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
8	from	from	ADP	_	13 yard	case
9	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	11 Yaga	det
10	Baba	Baba	PROPN	Number=Sing	11 Yaga	compound
11	Yaga	Yaga	PROPN	Number=Sing	13 yard	nmod:poss
12	's	's	PART	_	11 Yaga	case
13	yard	yard	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 came	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	blaze	gerund							vn light_emission-43.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
2	come	past	the skull with blazing eyes					from the Baba Yaga's yard	vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial_location»: agent=Theme from yard=Initial_Location

Option 2

The skull with blazing eyes, carried home by the bold heroine herself

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	2 skull	det
2	skull	skull	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 carried	nsubj:pass
3	with	with	ADP	_	5 eyes	case
4	blazing	blaze	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	5 eyes	amod
5	eyes	eye	NOUN	Number=Plur	2 skull	nmod
6	,	,	PUNCT	_	7 carried	punct
7	carried	carry	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	root	root
8	home	home	ADV	_	7 carried	advmod
9	by	by	ADP	_	12 heroine	case
10	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	12 heroine	det
11	bold	bold	ADJ	Degree=Pos	12 heroine	amod
12	heroine	heroine	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 carried	obl
13	herself	herself	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs Reflex=Yes	7 carried	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	blaze	gerund							vn light_emission-43.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
2	carry	participle · passive	the bold heroine	the skull with blazing eyes				herself = she obl; home property	vn carry-11.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent subject=Theme

Option 3 · ✓ the right answer

The skull with blazing eyes

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	2 skull	det
2	skull	skull	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root
3	with	with	ADP	_	5 eyes	case
4	blazing	blaze	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	5 eyes	amod
5	eyes	eye	NOUN	Number=Plur	2 skull	nmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	blaze	gerund							vn light_emission-43.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme

Option 4

The stepmother's own hands

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	2 stepmother	det
2	stepmother	stepmother	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 hands	nmod:poss
3	's	's	PART	_	2 stepmother	case
4	own	own	ADJ	Degree=Pos	5 hands	amod
5	hands	hand	NOUN	Number=Plur	root	root

The frames reader finds no event or fact in this sentence.

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/443-pg22373-part35/e2/