Exam question 4 · Jungle Book, Her Majesty's Servants, part 32: animals quar…

By what means does the narrator conceal his understanding of animal speech from his dog?

Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 3 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: narrator · What happens: mean, conceal, understand · To what, where: understanding, animal speech

This is exam question 4 of lesson 631 «Jungle Book, Her Majesty's Servants, part 32: animals quarrel in the dark about fear until a little dog stops the elephant» 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 conceal	obl
3	means	mean	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	2 what	acl:relcl
4	does	do	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	7 conceal	aux
5	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	6 narrator	det
6	narrator	narrator	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 conceal	nsubj
7	conceal	conceal	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
8	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	9 understanding	nmod:poss
9	understanding	understanding	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 conceal	obj
10	of	of	ADP	_	12 speech	case
11	animal	animal	NOUN	Number=Sing	12 speech	compound
12	speech	speech	NOUN	Number=Sing	9 understanding	nmod
13	from	from	ADP	_	15 dog	case
14	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	15 dog	nmod:poss
15	dog	dog	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 conceal	obl
16	?	?	PUNCT	_	7 conceal	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	other	roles by
1	mean	present				vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V S»: agent=Agent
2	conceal	present · do-support	the narrator	narrator's understanding of animal speech	from narrator's dog	vn concealment-16 «NP V NP PP.beneficiary»: agent=Agent understanding=Patient from dog=Beneficiary
3	understand		narrator	animal speech		nom understanding «cognition transitive»: poss=agent of=patient

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

By pretending that he cannot understand any beast at all, ever

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	By	by	SCONJ	_	2 pretending	mark
2	pretending	pretend	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	root	root
3	that	that	SCONJ	_	7 understand	mark
4	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	7 understand	nsubj
5	can	can	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	7 understand	aux
6	not	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	7 understand	advmod
7	understand	understand	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	2 pretending	ccomp
8	any	any	DET	PronType=Ind	9 beast	det
9	beast	beast	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 understand	obj
10	at	at	ADP	_	11 all	case
11	all	all	DET	PronType=Tot	7 understand	obl
12	,	,	PUNCT	_	13 ever	punct
13	ever	ever	ADV	PronType=Ind	2 pretending	advmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	pretend	gerund					ever		tree rules
2	not understand	can	he	any beast		all			vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Experiencer beast=Stimulus

Option 2

He never lets her know, and speaks only in English at home

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	3 lets	nsubj
2	never	never	ADV	PronType=Neg	3 lets	advmod
3	lets	let	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
4	her	she	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	3 lets	obj
5	know	know	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	3 lets	xcomp
6	,	,	PUNCT	_	8 speaks	punct
7	and	and	CCONJ	_	8 speaks	cc
8	speaks	speak	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	3 lets	conj
9	only	only	ADV	_	11 English	advmod
10	in	in	ADP	_	11 English	case
11	English	English	PROPN	Number=Sing	8 speaks	obj
12	at	at	ADP	_	13 home	case
13	home	home	NOUN	Number=Sing	8 speaks	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	roles by
1	not let	present	He	her = she		tree rules
2	know	infinitive	her = she not said here			vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer
3	speak speech: other	present	He not said here	English	home	tree rules

Option 3 · ✓ the right answer

He never lets her know

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	3 lets	nsubj
2	never	never	ADV	PronType=Neg	3 lets	advmod
3	lets	let	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
4	her	she	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	3 lets	obj
5	know	know	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	3 lets	xcomp

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	not let	present	He	her = she					tree rules
2	know	infinitive	her = she not said here						vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer

Option 4

By speaking English only

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	By	by	SCONJ	_	2 speaking	mark
2	speaking	speak	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	root	root
3	English	English	PROPN	Number=Sing	2 speaking	obj
4	only	only	ADV	_	2 speaking	advmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	speak speech: other	gerund		English					tree rules

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/631-pg236-part32/e4/