Exam question 3 · Uncle Remus, Brer Rabbit and Brer Wolf, part 2: Brer Rabbi…

What was the outcome of Brer Wolf's excavation of the pasture?

Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 4 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: outcome, pasture · What happens: be, excavate

This is exam question 3 of lesson 579 «Uncle Remus, Brer Rabbit and Brer Wolf, part 2: Brer Rabbit tricks Brer Wolf out of his best cow, and Brer Wolf digs for nothing» 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	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	1 What	cop
3	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	4 outcome	det
4	outcome	outcome	NOUN	Number=Sing	1 What	nsubj
5	of	of	ADP	_	9 excavation	case
6	Brer	Brer	PROPN	Number=Sing	7 Wolf	compound
7	Wolf	Wolf	PROPN	Number=Sing	9 excavation	nmod:poss
8	's	's	PART	_	7 Wolf	case
9	excavation	excavation	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 outcome	nmod
10	of	of	ADP	_	12 pasture	case
11	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	12 pasture	det
12	pasture	pasture	NOUN	Number=Sing	9 excavation	nmod
13	?	?	PUNCT	_	1 What	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is a	past	the outcome of Brer Wolf's excavation of the pasture						tree rules
2	excavate		the pasture						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

He recovered a bit of rotten meat that had been buried for a very long time

The tree, 16 words

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	2 recovered	nsubj
2	recovered	recover	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	4 bit	det
4	bit	bit	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 recovered	obj
5	of	of	ADP	_	7 meat	case
6	rotten	rotten	ADJ	Degree=Pos	7 meat	amod
7	meat	meat	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 bit	nmod
8	that	that	PRON	PronType=Rel	11 buried	nsubj:pass
9	had	have	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	11 buried	aux
10	been	be	AUX	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part	11 buried	aux:pass
11	buried	bury	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	7 meat	acl:relcl
12	for	for	ADP	_	16 time	case
13	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	16 time	det
14	very	very	ADV	_	15 long	advmod
15	long	long	ADJ	Degree=Pos	16 time	amod
16	time	time	NOUN	Number=Sing	11 buried	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	recover	past	He	a bit of rotten meat					vn obtain-13.5.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent bit=Theme
2	bury	past · perfect · passive		rotten meat			time		vn put-9.1-1 «NP V NP»: subject=Theme

Option 2

He found only old bones

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	2 found	nsubj
2	found	find	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	only	only	ADV	_	5 bones	advmod
4	old	old	ADJ	Degree=Pos	5 bones	amod
5	bones	bone	NOUN	Number=Plur	2 found	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	find	past	He	old bones					vn discover-84 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent bone=Topic

Option 3

He recovered no meat whatsoever, only dirt and a few worms from the field

The tree, 14 words

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	2 recovered	nsubj
2	recovered	recover	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	no	no	DET	PronType=Neg	4 meat	det
4	meat	meat	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 recovered	obj
5	whatsoever	whatsoever	ADV	_	2 recovered	advmod
6	,	,	PUNCT	_	8 dirt	punct
7	only	only	ADV	_	8 dirt	advmod
8	dirt	dirt	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 recovered	obl
9	and	and	CCONJ	_	12 worms	cc
10	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	12 worms	det
11	few	few	ADJ	Degree=Pos	12 worms	amod
12	worms	worm	NOUN	Number=Plur	8 dirt	conj
13	from	from	ADP	_	15 field	case
14	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	15 field	det
15	field	field	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 recovered	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	recover	past	He	no meat		the field		dirt and a few worms obl; whatsoever property	vn obtain-13.5.2 «NP V NP PP.source»: agent=Agent meat=Theme from field=Source

Option 4 · ✓ the right answer

He recovered no meat whatsoever

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	2 recovered	nsubj
2	recovered	recover	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	no	no	DET	PronType=Neg	4 meat	det
4	meat	meat	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 recovered	obj
5	whatsoever	whatsoever	ADV	_	2 recovered	advmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	recover	past	He	no meat				whatsoever property	vn obtain-13.5.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent meat=Theme

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/579-pg2306-part15/e3/