Exam question 2 · Legends of the Old Plantation, Uncle Remus Initiates the L…

What is the approximate age of the little boy who sits with Uncle Remus?

Mova's choice: option 4 · The right answer: option 2 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: approximate age, little boy · What happens: be, sit

This is exam question 2 of lesson 567 «Legends of the Old Plantation, Uncle Remus Initiates the Little Boy, part 3: Brer Rabbit tricks Brer Fox out of a dinner» 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	5 age	det
4	approximate	approximate	ADJ	Degree=Pos	5 age	amod
5	age	age	NOUN	Number=Sing	1 What	nsubj
6	of	of	ADP	_	9 boy	case
7	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	9 boy	det
8	little	little	ADJ	Degree=Pos	9 boy	amod
9	boy	boy	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 age	nmod
10	who	who	PRON	PronType=Rel	11 sits	nsubj
11	sits	sit	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	9 boy	acl:relcl
12	with	with	ADP	_	14 Remus	case
13	Uncle	Uncle	PROPN	Number=Sing	14 Remus	compound
14	Remus	Remus	PROPN	Number=Sing	11 sits	obl
15	?	?	PUNCT	_	1 What	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is a	present	the approximate age of the little boy						tree rules
2	sit	present	the little boy					with Uncle Remus	vn assuming_position-50 «NP V»: 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

somewhere around seven or eight years of age, I think

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	somewhere	somewhere	ADV	PronType=Ind	2 around	advmod
2	around	around	ADV	_	6 years	advmod
3	seven	seven	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	6 years	nummod
4	or	or	CCONJ	_	5 eight	cc
5	eight	eight	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	3 seven	conj
6	years	year	NOUN	Number=Plur	11 think	obl
7	of	of	ADP	_	8 age	case
8	age	age	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 years	nmod
9	,	,	PUNCT	_	6 years	punct
10	I	I	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs	11 think	nsubj
11	think	think	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	think speech: other	present	I				year		vn focus-87.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent

Option 2 · ✓ the right answer

seven years

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	seven	seven	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	2 years	nummod
2	years	year	NOUN	Number=Plur	root	root

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

Option 3

eight years

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	eight	eight	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	2 years	nummod
2	years	year	NOUN	Number=Plur	root	root

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

Option 4 · ← Mova's choice

about seven years old, though he looked a bit older

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	about	about	ADV	_	2 seven	advmod
2	seven	seven	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	3 years	nummod
3	years	year	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 old	obl:unmarked
4	old	old	ADJ	Degree=Pos	root	root
5	,	,	PUNCT	_	8 looked	punct
6	though	though	SCONJ	_	8 looked	mark
7	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	8 looked	nsubj
8	looked	look	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	4 old	conj
9	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	10 bit	det
10	bit	bit	NOUN	Number=Sing	11 older	obl:unmarked
11	older	old	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	8 looked	xcomp

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	look	past	he					old property	vn stimulus_subject-30.4 «NP V ADJ»: agent=Stimulus

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/567-pg2306-part3/e2/