Exam question 1 · Uncle Remus, The Wonderful Tar Baby Story: Brer Rabbit get…
Which substances did Brer Fox combine to fashion the figure known as the Tar-Baby?
Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 2 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: substances · What happens: fox, fashion, know · To what, where: combine, figure
This is exam question 1 of lesson 568 «Uncle Remus, The Wonderful Tar Baby Story: Brer Rabbit gets stuck fast to the Tar-Baby» 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 | Which | which | DET | PronType=Int | 2 substances | det |
| 2 | substances | substance | NOUN | Number=Plur | 5 Fox | nsubj |
| 3 | did | do | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 5 Fox | aux |
| 4 | Brer | Brer | PROPN | Number=Sing | 5 Fox | nsubj |
| 5 | Fox | fox | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | root | root |
| 6 | combine | combine | NOUN | Number=Sing | 5 Fox | obj |
| 7 | to | to | PART | _ | 8 fashion | mark |
| 8 | fashion | fashion | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 5 Fox | advcl |
| 9 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 10 figure | det |
| 10 | figure | figure | NOUN | Number=Sing | 8 fashion | obj |
| 11 | known | know | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | 10 figure | acl |
| 12 | as | as | ADP | _ | 16 Baby | case |
| 13 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 16 Baby | det |
| 14 | Tar | Tar | PROPN | Number=Sing | 16 Baby | compound |
| 15 | - | - | PUNCT | _ | 14 Tar | punct |
| 16 | Baby | Baby | PROPN | Number=Sing | 11 known | obl |
| 17 | ? | ? | PUNCT | _ | 5 Fox | punct |
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | fox | past · do-support | which substances | combine | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Stimulus combine=Experiencer | ||||
| 2 | fashion | to-infinitive | which substances not said here | the figure | vn build-26.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent figure=Product | ||||
| 3 | know | participle | the figure not said here | as the Tar Baby | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Experiencer as baby=Attribute |
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
Lard and turpentine
The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)
| # | word | lemma | UPOS | features | head | relation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Lard | lard | NOUN | Number=Sing | root | root |
| 2 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 3 turpentine | cc |
| 3 | turpentine | turpentine | NOUN | Number=Sing | 1 Lard | conj |
The frames reader finds no event or fact in this sentence.
Option 2 · ✓ the right answer
Tar and turpentine
The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)
| # | word | lemma | UPOS | features | head | relation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Tar | tar | NOUN | Number=Sing | root | root |
| 2 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 3 turpentine | cc |
| 3 | turpentine | turpentine | NOUN | Number=Sing | 1 Tar | conj |
The frames reader finds no event or fact in this sentence.
Option 3
Tar and molasses
The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)
| # | word | lemma | UPOS | features | head | relation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Tar | tar | NOUN | Number=Sing | root | root |
| 2 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 3 molasses | cc |
| 3 | molasses | molass | NOUN | Number=Plur | 1 Tar | conj |
The frames reader finds no event or fact in this sentence.
Option 4
Tar
The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)
| # | word | lemma | UPOS | features | head | relation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Tar | tar | NOUN | Number=Sing | 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/568-pg2306-part4/e1/