Test 8 · ★★ · Just So Stories, How the Alphabet Was Made, part 2: yo, so…

Real life: how many letters does English need, and how many characters does Chinese writing use?

Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 1 · right ✓ · Who acts: many letters, many characters · What happens: need, do · To what, where: Chinese writing use

This is test 8 · ★★ of lesson 88 «Just So Stories, How the Alphabet Was Made, part 2: yo, so, sho, shi, and shu-ya, the sky-water» of the books course of Mova's primary school. 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	Real	real	ADJ	Degree=Pos	2 life	amod
2	life	life	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root
3	:	:	PUNCT	_	9 need	punct
4	how	how	ADV	PronType=Int	5 many	advmod
5	many	many	ADJ	Degree=Pos	6 letters	amod
6	letters	letter	NOUN	Number=Plur	9 need	nsubj
7	does	do	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	9 need	aux
8	English	English	PROPN	Number=Sing	9 need	nsubj
9	need	need	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	2 life	parataxis
10	,	,	PUNCT	_	15 does	punct
11	and	and	CCONJ	_	15 does	cc
12	how	how	ADV	PronType=Int	13 many	advmod
13	many	many	ADJ	Degree=Pos	14 characters	amod
14	characters	character	NOUN	Number=Plur	15 does	nsubj
15	does	do	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	9 need	conj
16	Chinese	Chinese	ADJ	Degree=Pos	18 use	amod
17	writing	writing	NOUN	Number=Sing	18 use	compound
18	use	use	NOUN	Number=Sing	15 does	obj
19	?	?	PUNCT	_	2 life	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	need	present · do-support	many letters						vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP S_INF»: agent=Pivot
2	do	present	many characters	Chinese writing use					vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent use=Eventuality

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

26 letters; thousands of characters

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	26	26	NUM	NumForm=Digit NumType=Card	2 letters	nummod
2	letters	letter	NOUN	Number=Plur	root	root
3	;	;	PUNCT	_	4 thousands	punct
4	thousands	thousand	NOUN	Number=Plur	2 letters	conj
5	of	of	ADP	_	6 characters	case
6	characters	character	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 thousands	nmod

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

Option 2

26 letters; thousands of characters, each one a whole word or syllable in its own box

The tree, 16 words

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	26	26	NUM	NumForm=Digit NumType=Card	2 letters	nummod
2	letters	letter	NOUN	Number=Plur	root	root
3	;	;	PUNCT	_	4 thousands	punct
4	thousands	thousand	NOUN	Number=Plur	2 letters	conj
5	of	of	ADP	_	6 characters	case
6	characters	character	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 thousands	nmod
7	,	,	PUNCT	_	12 word	punct
8	each	each	DET	PronType=Tot	9 one	det
9	one	one	NOUN	Number=Sing	12 word	nsubj
10	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	12 word	det
11	whole	whole	ADJ	Degree=Pos	12 word	amod
12	word	word	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 thousands	appos
13	or	or	CCONJ	_	14 syllable	cc
14	syllable	syllable	NOUN	Number=Sing	12 word	conj
15	in	in	ADP	_	18 box	case
16	its	its	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	18 box	nmod:poss
17	own	own	ADJ	Degree=Pos	18 box	amod
18	box	box	NOUN	Number=Sing	12 word	nmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	word		each one			syllable's own box			tree rules

Option 3

26 letters; some hundreds of signs

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	26	26	NUM	NumForm=Digit NumType=Card	2 letters	nummod
2	letters	letter	NOUN	Number=Plur	root	root
3	;	;	PUNCT	_	5 hundreds	punct
4	some	some	DET	PronType=Ind	5 hundreds	det
5	hundreds	hundred	NOUN	Number=Plur	2 letters	conj
6	of	of	ADP	_	7 signs	case
7	signs	sign	NOUN	Number=Plur	5 hundreds	nmod

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

Option 4

26 letters, and so many thousands of different characters that nobody has ever counted them all

The tree, 16 words

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	26	26	NUM	NumForm=Digit NumType=Card	2 letters	nummod
2	letters	letter	NOUN	Number=Plur	15 counted	nsubj:pass
3	,	,	PUNCT	_	7 thousands	punct
4	and	and	CCONJ	_	7 thousands	cc
5	so	so	ADV	_	6 many	advmod
6	many	many	ADJ	Degree=Pos	7 thousands	amod
7	thousands	thousand	NOUN	Number=Plur	15 counted	obl
8	of	of	ADP	_	10 characters	case
9	different	different	ADJ	Degree=Pos	10 characters	amod
10	characters	character	NOUN	Number=Plur	7 thousands	nmod
11	that	that	PRON	PronType=Rel	15 counted	nsubj:pass
12	nobody	nobody	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Neg	15 counted	nsubj:pass
13	has	have	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	15 counted	aux
14	ever	ever	ADV	PronType=Ind	15 counted	advmod
15	counted	count	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	root	root
16	them	they	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	15 counted	obj
17	all	all	DET	PronType=Tot	16 them	nmod:unmarked

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	count	present · perfect · passive		26 letters			ever	many thousands of different characters obl	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/88-justso-alphabet-2-shu-ya-sky-water/t8/