Exam question 1 · Fairy Tales, The Little Mermaid, part 88: the mermaid save…
By what quality were the sea-dwellers' voices distinguished from those of human beings?
Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 2 · wrong ✗ · What happens: be, distinguish · To what, where: quality voices
This is exam question 1 of lesson 877 «Fairy Tales, The Little Mermaid, part 88: the mermaid saves the drowning prince from the storm» 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=Int | root | root |
| 3 | quality | quality | NOUN | Number=Sing | 10 voices | compound |
| 4 | were | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 10 voices | cop |
| 5 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 8 dwellers | det |
| 6 | sea | sea | NOUN | Number=Sing | 8 dwellers | compound |
| 7 | - | - | PUNCT | _ | 6 sea | punct |
| 8 | dwellers | dweller | NOUN | Number=Plur | 10 voices | nmod:poss |
| 9 | ' | 's | PART | _ | 8 dwellers | case |
| 10 | voices | voice | NOUN | Number=Plur | 2 what | nsubj |
| 11 | distinguished | distinguish | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | 10 voices | acl |
| 12 | from | from | ADP | _ | 13 those | case |
| 13 | those | that | PRON | Number=Plur PronType=Dem | 11 distinguished | obl |
| 14 | of | of | ADP | _ | 16 beings | case |
| 15 | human | human | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 16 beings | amod |
| 16 | beings | being | NOUN | Number=Plur | 13 those | nmod |
| 17 | ? | ? | PUNCT | _ | 2 what | punct |
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | is a | past | the sea dwellers's quality voices | tree rules | |||||
| 2 | distinguish | participle | the sea dwellers's quality voices not said here | from the sea dwellers's quality voices | vn distinguish-23.5-1 «NP V NP.theme PP.co-theme»: agent=Agent from that=Co-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
They surpassed every human voice in beauty and in strength together
The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)
| # | word | lemma | UPOS | features | head | relation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | They | they | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 2 surpassed | nsubj |
| 2 | surpassed | surpass | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 3 | every | every | DET | PronType=Tot | 5 voice | det |
| 4 | human | human | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 5 voice | amod |
| 5 | voice | voice | NOUN | Number=Sing | 2 surpassed | obj |
| 6 | in | in | ADP | _ | 7 beauty | case |
| 7 | beauty | beauty | NOUN | Number=Sing | 2 surpassed | obl |
| 8 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 10 strength | cc |
| 9 | in | in | ADP | _ | 10 strength | case |
| 10 | strength | strength | NOUN | Number=Sing | 7 beauty | conj |
| 11 | together | together | ADV | _ | 2 surpassed | advmod |
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | surpass | past | They | every human voice | in beauty and strength; together property | vn exceed-90 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Pivot voice=Theme in beauty=Attribute |
Option 2 · ✓ the right answer
They surpassed any human voice in beauty
The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)
| # | word | lemma | UPOS | features | head | relation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | They | they | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 2 surpassed | nsubj |
| 2 | surpassed | surpass | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 3 | any | any | DET | PronType=Ind | 5 voice | det |
| 4 | human | human | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 5 voice | amod |
| 5 | voice | voice | NOUN | Number=Sing | 2 surpassed | obj |
| 6 | in | in | ADP | _ | 7 beauty | case |
| 7 | beauty | beauty | NOUN | Number=Sing | 2 surpassed | obl |
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | surpass | past | They | any human voice | in beauty | vn exceed-90 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Pivot voice=Theme in beauty=Attribute |
Option 3
Their song was sweeter than all voices
The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)
| # | word | lemma | UPOS | features | head | relation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Their | their | PRON | Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 2 song | nmod:poss |
| 2 | song | song | NOUN | Number=Sing | 4 sweeter | nsubj |
| 3 | was | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 4 sweeter | cop |
| 4 | sweeter | sweet | ADJ | Degree=Cmp | root | root |
| 5 | than | than | ADP | _ | 7 voices | case |
| 6 | all | all | DET | PronType=Tot | 7 voices | det |
| 7 | voices | voice | NOUN | Number=Plur | 4 sweeter | obl |
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | is | past | Their song | than all voices; sweet property | tree rules | ||||
| 2 | sing | Their = they | nom song «communication intransitive»: poss=agent |
Option 4
They surpassed any human voice in beauty, which was strange and unknown to sailors
The tree, 14 words
The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)
| # | word | lemma | UPOS | features | head | relation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | They | they | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 2 surpassed | nsubj |
| 2 | surpassed | surpass | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 3 | any | any | DET | PronType=Ind | 5 voice | det |
| 4 | human | human | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 5 voice | amod |
| 5 | voice | voice | NOUN | Number=Sing | 2 surpassed | obj |
| 6 | in | in | ADP | _ | 7 beauty | case |
| 7 | beauty | beauty | NOUN | Number=Sing | 2 surpassed | obl |
| 8 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 11 strange | punct |
| 9 | which | which | PRON | PronType=Rel | 11 strange | nsubj |
| 10 | was | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 11 strange | cop |
| 11 | strange | strange | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 7 beauty | acl:relcl |
| 12 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 13 unknown | cc |
| 13 | unknown | unknown | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 11 strange | conj |
| 14 | to | to | ADP | _ | 15 sailors | case |
| 15 | sailors | sailor | NOUN | Number=Plur | 2 surpassed | obl |
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | surpass | past | They | any human voice | to sailors; in beauty | vn exceed-90 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Pivot voice=Theme in beauty=Attribute | |||
| 2 | is | past | beauty | strange property | tree rules | ||||
| 3 | be | beauty not said here | 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/877-pg27200-part88/e1/