Exam question 3 · Andersen's Fairy Tales, Ole-Luk-Oie: Ole's brother Death s…

What is the nature of the tales told to riders who received "Middling" or "Tolerably good"?

Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 3 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: nature, riders · What happens: be, tell, receive, middle · To what, where: tales, riders · Speech: someone speaks here

This is exam question 3 of lesson 928 «Andersen's Fairy Tales, Ole-Luk-Oie: Ole's brother Death shows Hjalmar how he sorts the riders by their mark-books» 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	What	what	PRON	PronType=Int	root	root
2	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	1 What	cop
3	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	4 nature	det
4	nature	nature	NOUN	Number=Sing	1 What	nsubj
5	of	of	ADP	_	7 tales	case
6	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	7 tales	det
7	tales	tale	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 nature	nmod
8	told	tell	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	7 tales	acl
9	to	to	ADP	_	10 riders	case
10	riders	rider	NOUN	Number=Plur	8 told	obl
11	who	who	PRON	PronType=Rel	12 received	nsubj
12	received	receive	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	10 riders	acl:relcl
13	"	"	PUNCT	_	14 Middling	punct
14	Middling	middle	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	12 received	advcl
15	"	"	PUNCT	_	14 Middling	punct
16	or	or	CCONJ	_	19 good	cc
17	"	"	PUNCT	_	19 good	punct
18	Tolerably	tolerably	ADV	_	19 good	advmod
19	good	good	ADJ	Degree=Pos	12 received	conj
20	"	"	PUNCT	_	19 good	punct
21	?	?	PUNCT	_	1 What	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	roles by
1	is a	present	the nature of the tales			tree rules
2	tell speech: assert	participle		the tales not said here	riders	vn transfer_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V PP.recipient how S»: agent=Agent to rider=Recipient
3	receive	past	riders			vn obtain-13.5.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent
4	middle in a quote	gerund	riders not said here			tree rules

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

a sad old story

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	4 story	det
2	sad	sad	ADJ	Degree=Pos	4 story	amod
3	old	old	ADJ	Degree=Pos	4 story	amod
4	story	story	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root

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

Option 2

a long and frightful tale about a ship that was lost at sea

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	5 tale	det
2	long	long	ADJ	Degree=Pos	5 tale	amod
3	and	and	CCONJ	_	4 frightful	cc
4	frightful	frightful	ADJ	Degree=Pos	2 long	conj
5	tale	tale	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root
6	about	about	ADP	_	8 ship	case
7	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	8 ship	det
8	ship	ship	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 tale	nmod
9	that	that	PRON	PronType=Rel	11 lost	nsubj:pass
10	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	11 lost	aux:pass
11	lost	lose	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	8 ship	acl:relcl
12	at	at	ADP	_	13 sea	case
13	sea	sea	NOUN	Number=Sing	11 lost	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	lose	past · passive		a ship		sea			vn succeed-74-3-1 «NP V NP»: subject=Eventuality

Option 3 · ✓ the right answer

a frightful tale

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	3 tale	det
2	frightful	frightful	ADJ	Degree=Pos	3 tale	amod
3	tale	tale	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root

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

Option 4

the most frightful and dreadful tale that anyone had ever heard before

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	6 tale	det
2	most	most	ADV	Degree=Sup	3 frightful	advmod
3	frightful	frightful	ADJ	Degree=Pos	6 tale	amod
4	and	and	CCONJ	_	5 dreadful	cc
5	dreadful	dreadful	ADJ	Degree=Pos	3 frightful	conj
6	tale	tale	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root
7	that	that	SCONJ	_	11 heard	mark
8	anyone	anyone	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Ind	11 heard	nsubj
9	had	have	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	11 heard	aux
10	ever	ever	ADV	PronType=Ind	11 heard	advmod
11	heard	hear	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part	6 tale	acl
12	before	before	SCONJ	_	11 heard	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	hear	past · perfect	anyone	the frightful tale not said here			ever		vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V S»: agent=Experiencer tale=Stimulus

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/928-pg27200-part139/e3/