Exam question 4 · Andersen's Fairy Tales, The Bell-Deep: the king's son sees…

Indicate the reason the schoolmaster gives for disbelieving that the bell sounds beneath the water.

Mova's choice: option 2 · The right answer: option 4 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: you, schoolmaster, bell · What happens: indicate, give, disbelieve, sound · To what, where: reason, water

This is exam question 4 of lesson 801 «Andersen's Fairy Tales, The Bell-Deep: the king's son sees the sunset, meets the poor boy, and the old Bell tells its tales» 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	Indicate	indicate	VERB	Mood=Imp VerbForm=Fin	root	root
2	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	3 reason	det
3	reason	reason	NOUN	Number=Sing	1 Indicate	obj
4	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	5 schoolmaster	det
5	schoolmaster	schoolmaster	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 gives	nsubj
6	gives	give	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	3 reason	acl:relcl
7	for	for	SCONJ	_	8 disbelieving	mark
8	disbelieving	disbelieve	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	6 gives	advcl
9	that	that	SCONJ	_	12 sounds	mark
10	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	11 bell	det
11	bell	bell	NOUN	Number=Sing	12 sounds	nsubj
12	sounds	sound	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	8 disbelieving	ccomp
13	beneath	beneath	ADP	_	15 water	case
14	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	15 water	det
15	water	water	NOUN	Number=Sing	12 sounds	obl
16	.	.	PUNCT	_	1 Indicate	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	roles by
1	indicate	imperative	you not said here	the reason		vn indicate-78-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Pivot reason=Topic
2	give	present	the schoolmaster	the reason not said here		vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent reason=Theme
3	disbelieve	gerund	the schoolmaster not said here			tree rules
4	sound	present	the bell		the water	vn sound_emission-43.2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme beneath water=Location

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

the bell was never there

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	2 bell	det
2	bell	bell	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 there	nsubj
3	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	5 there	cop
4	never	never	ADV	PronType=Neg	5 there	advmod
5	there	there	ADV	PronType=Dem	root	root

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	not is	past	the bell					there property	tree rules

Option 2 · ← Mova's choice

there was no bell down there under the water

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	there	there	PRON	PronType=Dem	2 was	expl
2	was	be	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	no	no	DET	PronType=Neg	4 bell	det
4	bell	bell	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 was	nsubj
5	down	down	ADV	_	6 there	advmod
6	there	there	ADV	PronType=Dem	2 was	advmod
7	under	under	ADP	_	9 water	case
8	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	9 water	det
9	water	water	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 was	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	be	past	no bell			the water; there; there			vn exist-47.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme under water=Location

Option 3

the water was too cold

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	2 water	det
2	water	water	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 cold	nsubj
3	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	5 cold	cop
4	too	too	ADV	_	5 cold	advmod
5	cold	cold	ADJ	Degree=Pos	root	root

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

Option 4 · ✓ the right answer

there was no bell down there

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	there	there	PRON	PronType=Dem	2 was	expl
2	was	be	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	no	no	DET	PronType=Neg	4 bell	det
4	bell	bell	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 was	nsubj
5	down	down	ADV	_	2 was	advmod
6	there	there	ADV	PronType=Dem	2 was	advmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	be down	past	no bell			there; there		down property	vn exist-47.1 «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/801-pg27200-part12/e4/