Exam question 3 · Uncle Remus, A Case of Measles, part 32: Remus brags, gets…

What course of action did the narrator recommend to the travelling family in preference to rail transport?

Mova's choice: option 2 · The right answer: option 2 · right ✓ · Who acts: course · What happens: recommend · To what, where: travelling family, preference

This is exam question 3 of lesson 596 «Uncle Remus, A Case of Measles, part 32: Remus brags, gets sick, warns a poor family, and confesses to a murder that may not have happened» 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	DET	PronType=Int	2 course	det
2	course	course	NOUN	Number=Sing	8 recommend	nsubj
3	of	of	ADP	_	4 action	case
4	action	action	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 course	nmod
5	did	do	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	8 recommend	aux
6	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	7 narrator	det
7	narrator	narrator	NOUN	Number=Sing	8 recommend	nsubj
8	recommend	recommend	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
9	to	to	ADP	_	12 family	case
10	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	12 family	det
11	travelling	travelling	NOUN	Number=Sing	12 family	compound
12	family	family	NOUN	Number=Sing	8 recommend	obl
13	in	in	ADP	_	14 preference	case
14	preference	preference	NOUN	Number=Sing	8 recommend	obl
15	to	to	ADP	_	17 transport	case
16	rail	rail	NOUN	Number=Sing	17 transport	compound
17	transport	transport	NOUN	Number=Sing	14 preference	nmod
18	?	?	PUNCT	_	8 recommend	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	recommend	past · do-support	what course of action		the travelling family	preference to rail transport			vn say-37.7-1-1-1 «NP V PP.recipient how S»: agent=Agent to family=Recipient

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

take the train

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	take	take	VERB	Mood=Imp VerbForm=Fin	root	root
2	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	3 train	det
3	train	train	NOUN	Number=Sing	1 take	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	take	imperative	you not said here	the train					vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent train=Theme

Option 2 · ← Mova's choice · ✓ the right answer

a return journey on foot

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	3 journey	det
2	return	return	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 journey	compound
3	journey	journey	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root
4	on	on	ADP	_	5 foot	case
5	foot	foot	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 journey	nmod

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

Option 3

walk home

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	walk	walk	VERB	Mood=Imp VerbForm=Fin	root	root
2	home	home	ADV	_	1 walk	advmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	walk	imperative	you not said here					home property	vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme

Option 4

a long trip by horse

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	3 trip	det
2	long	long	ADJ	Degree=Pos	3 trip	amod
3	trip	trip	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root
4	by	by	ADP	_	5 horse	case
5	horse	horse	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 trip	nmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	trip		horse						nom trip «act transitive»: by=agent

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/596-pg2306-part32/e3/