Exam question 3 · Uncle Remus, Fox Is "Outdone" by Mr. Rabbit: Brer Rabbit t…
By what instrument did Brer Fox attempt the excavation of the hollow tree?
Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 3 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: instrument, hollow tree · What happens: do, attempt, excavate · To what, where: Brer Fox, excavation
This is exam question 3 of lesson 571 «Uncle Remus, Fox Is "Outdone" by Mr. Rabbit: Brer Rabbit tricks Brer Fox and Brer Buzzard into the hollow tree» 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 | By | by | ADP | _ | 2 what | case |
| 2 | what | what | PRON | PronType=Rel | 7 attempt | obl |
| 3 | instrument | instrument | NOUN | Number=Sing | 4 did | nsubj |
| 4 | did | do | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 2 what | acl:relcl |
| 5 | Brer | Brer | PROPN | Number=Sing | 6 Fox | compound |
| 6 | Fox | Fox | PROPN | Number=Sing | 4 did | obj |
| 7 | attempt | attempt | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 8 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 9 excavation | det |
| 9 | excavation | excavation | NOUN | Number=Sing | 7 attempt | obj |
| 10 | of | of | ADP | _ | 13 tree | case |
| 11 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 13 tree | det |
| 12 | hollow | hollow | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 13 tree | amod |
| 13 | tree | tree | NOUN | Number=Sing | 9 excavation | nmod |
| 14 | ? | ? | PUNCT | _ | 7 attempt | punct |
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | do | past | instrument | Brer Fox | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent fox=Eventuality | ||||
| 2 | attempt | present | the excavation of the hollow tree | vn try-61.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent excavation=Eventuality | |||||
| 3 | excavate | the hollow tree | nom excavation «act intransitive»: of=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
A hammer
The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)
| # | word | lemma | UPOS | features | head | relation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | A | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 2 hammer | det |
| 2 | hammer | hammer | NOUN | Number=Sing | root | root |
The frames reader finds no event or fact in this sentence.
Option 2
A shovel
The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)
| # | word | lemma | UPOS | features | head | relation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | A | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 2 shovel | det |
| 2 | shovel | shovel | NOUN | Number=Sing | root | root |
The frames reader finds no event or fact in this sentence.
Option 3 · ✓ the right answer
An axe
The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)
| # | word | lemma | UPOS | features | head | relation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | An | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 2 axe | det |
| 2 | axe | axe | NOUN | Number=Sing | root | root |
The frames reader finds no event or fact in this sentence.
Option 4
A heavy steel hatchet and a rusty old saw
The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)
| # | word | lemma | UPOS | features | head | relation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | A | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 4 hatchet | det |
| 2 | heavy | heavy | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 4 hatchet | amod |
| 3 | steel | steel | NOUN | Number=Sing | 4 hatchet | compound |
| 4 | hatchet | hatchet | NOUN | Number=Sing | root | root |
| 5 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 9 saw | cc |
| 6 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 9 saw | det |
| 7 | rusty | rusty | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 9 saw | amod |
| 8 | old | old | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 9 saw | amod |
| 9 | saw | saw | NOUN | Number=Sing | 4 hatchet | conj |
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/571-pg2306-part7/e3/