Exam question 2 · Nine Unlikely Tales, The Dragon of Rotundia: the dragon is…

By what means did the island come to spin?

Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 1 · right ✓ · Who acts: island · What happens: mean, come, spin

This is exam question 2 of lesson 639 «Nine Unlikely Tales, The Dragon of Rotundia: the dragon is wound up on the pillar, the island spins, and everyone changes size» 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 come	obl
3	means	mean	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	2 what	acl:relcl
4	did	do	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	7 come	aux
5	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	6 island	det
6	island	island	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 come	nsubj
7	come	come	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
8	to	to	PART	_	9 spin	mark
9	spin	spin	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	7 come	xcomp
10	?	?	PUNCT	_	7 come	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	roles by
1	mean	present		vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V S»: agent=Agent
2	come	past · do-support	the island	tree rules
3	spin	to-infinitive	the island not said here	vn roll-51.3.1 «NP.theme V»: agent=Theme

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 · ✓ the right answer

the dragon's pulling of its tail

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	2 dragon	det
2	dragon	dragon	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 pulling	nmod:poss
3	's	's	PART	_	2 dragon	case
4	pulling	pulling	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root
5	of	of	ADP	_	7 tail	case
6	its	its	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	7 tail	nmod:poss
7	tail	tail	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 pulling	nmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	pull		the dragon	pulling's tail					nom pulling «act transitive»: poss=agent of=patient

Option 2

by tying the rope to a boat

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	by	by	SCONJ	_	2 tying	mark
2	tying	tie	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	root	root
3	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	4 rope	det
4	rope	rope	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 tying	obj
5	to	to	ADP	_	7 boat	case
6	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	7 boat	det
7	boat	boat	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 tying	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	tie	gerund		the rope				to a boat	vn mix-22.1-2 «NP V NP PP.co-patient»: agent=Agent rope=Patient to boat=Co-Patient

Option 3

by the boy's loud singing

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	by	by	ADP	_	6 singing	case
2	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	3 boy	det
3	boy	boy	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 singing	nmod:poss
4	's	's	PART	_	3 boy	case
5	loud	loud	ADJ	Degree=Pos	6 singing	amod
6	singing	singing	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	sing		the boy						nom singing «act transitive»: poss=agent

Option 4

by the tide

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	by	by	ADP	_	3 tide	case
2	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	3 tide	det
3	tide	tide	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root

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/639-pg23661-part7/e2/