Exam question 2 · The Jungle Book, The White Seal, part 17: Sea Catch return…

Which of the following is the principal reason Kotick nearly drowned on his first sea visit?

Mova's choice: option 4 · The right answer: option 4 · right ✓ · Who acts: Kotick · What happens: follow, be, drown, visit · To what, where: principal reason, first sea visit

This is exam question 2 of lesson 616 «The Jungle Book, The White Seal, part 17: Sea Catch returns battered, Kotick is born white, and he grows up to fish at sea» 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	PRON	PronType=Rel	8 reason	nsubj
2	of	of	ADP	_	8 reason	case
3	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	8 reason	det
4	following	follow	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	8 reason	case
5	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	8 reason	cop
6	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	8 reason	det
7	principal	principal	ADJ	Degree=Pos	8 reason	amod
8	reason	reason	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root
9	Kotick	Kotick	PROPN	Number=Sing	11 drowned	nsubj
10	nearly	nearly	ADV	_	11 drowned	advmod
11	drowned	drown	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	8 reason	acl:relcl
12	on	on	ADP	_	16 visit	case
13	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	16 visit	nmod:poss
14	first	first	ADJ	Degree=Pos NumForm=Word NumType=Ord	16 visit	amod
15	sea	sea	NOUN	Number=Sing	16 visit	compound
16	visit	visit	NOUN	Number=Sing	11 drowned	obl
17	?	?	PUNCT	_	8 reason	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	other	roles by
1	follow	gerund					vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
2	is	present				of the principal reason	tree rules
3	drown	past	Kotick	the principal reason not said here	Kotick's first sea visit	nearly property	vn poison-42.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent reason=Patient
4	visit		Kotick				nom visit «act transitive»: poss=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

He was too small

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	4 small	nsubj
2	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	4 small	cop
3	too	too	ADV	_	4 small	advmod
4	small	small	ADJ	Degree=Pos	root	root

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is	past	He					small property	tree rules

Option 2

He swallowed too much salt and sank under the shallow surf

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 swallowed	nsubj
2	swallowed	swallow	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	too	too	ADV	_	4 much	advmod
4	much	much	ADJ	Degree=Pos	5 salt	amod
5	salt	salt	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 swallowed	obj
6	and	and	CCONJ	_	7 sank	cc
7	sank	sink	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	2 swallowed	conj
8	under	under	ADP	_	11 surf	case
9	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	11 surf	det
10	shallow	shallow	ADJ	Degree=Pos	11 surf	amod
11	surf	surf	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 sank	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	swallow	past	He	much salt					vn gobble-39.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent salt=Patient
2	sink	past	He not said here			the shallow surf			vn other_cos-45.4 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient

Option 3

Cold water

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Cold	cold	ADJ	Degree=Pos	2 water	amod
2	water	water	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root

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

Option 4 · ← Mova's choice · ✓ the right answer

A wave carried him beyond his depth before he could swim

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	A	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	2 wave	det
2	wave	wave	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 carried	nsubj
3	carried	carry	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
4	him	he	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	3 carried	obj
5	beyond	beyond	ADP	_	7 depth	case
6	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	7 depth	nmod:poss
7	depth	depth	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 carried	obl
8	before	before	SCONJ	_	11 swim	mark
9	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	11 swim	nsubj
10	could	could	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	11 swim	aux
11	swim	swim	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	3 carried	advcl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	carry	past	a wave	him = he				beyond wave's depth	vn carry-11.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent he=Theme
2	swim	could	wave						vn run-51.3.2-1 «NP V»: agent=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/616-pg236-part17/e2/