Test 6 · ★ · Andersen's Fairy Tales, Soup from a Sausage Skewer: the mo…

Did the proverb actually mean anything, or was it just rubbish?

Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 2 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: proverb · What happens: do, mean, be · To what, where: proverb, anything, rubbish

This is test 6 · ★ of lesson 992 «Andersen's Fairy Tales, Soup from a Sausage Skewer: the mouse's adventures end in a wedding and a critics' complaint, then storks appear on a roof» 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	Did	do	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
2	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	3 proverb	det
3	proverb	proverb	NOUN	Number=Sing	1 Did	obj
4	actually	actually	ADV	_	5 mean	advmod
5	mean	mean	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	3 proverb	acl:relcl
6	anything	anything	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Ind	5 mean	obj
7	,	,	PUNCT	_	12 rubbish	punct
8	or	or	CCONJ	_	12 rubbish	cc
9	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	12 rubbish	cop
10	it	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	12 rubbish	nsubj
11	just	just	ADV	_	12 rubbish	advmod
12	rubbish	rubbish	NOUN	Number=Sing	1 Did	parataxis
13	?	?	PUNCT	_	1 Did	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	other	roles by
1	do	past		the proverb		vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent proverb=Eventuality
2	mean	present	the proverb not said here	anything	actually property	vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent anything=Topic
3	is a	past	proverb	rubbish		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

It meant nothing at all, the owl said, which everyone found very amusing indeed.

The tree, 14 words

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	It	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	2 meant	nsubj
2	meant	mean	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	nothing	nothing	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Neg	2 meant	obj
4	at	at	ADP	_	5 all	case
5	all	all	DET	PronType=Tot	3 nothing	nmod
6	,	,	PUNCT	_	9 said	punct
7	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	8 owl	det
8	owl	owl	NOUN	Number=Sing	9 said	nsubj
9	said	say	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	2 meant	conj
10	,	,	PUNCT	_	13 found	punct
11	which	which	PRON	PronType=Rel	13 found	nsubj
12	everyone	everyone	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Tot	13 found	nsubj
13	found	find	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	9 said	ccomp
14	very	very	ADV	_	15 amusing	advmod
15	amusing	amusing	ADJ	Degree=Pos	13 found	xcomp
16	indeed	indeed	ADV	_	13 found	advmod
17	.	.	PUNCT	_	2 meant	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	other	roles by
1	mean	past	It	nothing	all		vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent nothing=Topic
2	say speech: assert	past	the owl				vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic
3	find	past				amusing, indeed property	vn declare-29.4-1-1 «NP V what S_INF»: agent=Agent

Option 2 · ✓ the right answer

It meant nothing, the owl said

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	It	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	2 meant	nsubj
2	meant	mean	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	nothing	nothing	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Neg	2 meant	obj
4	,	,	PUNCT	_	7 said	punct
5	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	6 owl	det
6	owl	owl	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 said	nsubj
7	said	say	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	2 meant	conj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	mean	past	It	nothing					vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent nothing=Topic
2	say speech: assert	past	the owl						vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent

Option 3

It meant nothing, the owl said, and it was just a clever-sounding phrase

The tree, 14 words

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	It	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	2 meant	nsubj
2	meant	mean	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	nothing	nothing	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Neg	2 meant	obj
4	,	,	PUNCT	_	7 said	punct
5	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	6 owl	det
6	owl	owl	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 said	nsubj
7	said	say	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 nothing	acl:relcl
8	,	,	PUNCT	_	17 phrase	punct
9	and	and	CCONJ	_	17 phrase	cc
10	it	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	17 phrase	nsubj
11	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	17 phrase	cop
12	just	just	ADV	_	17 phrase	advmod
13	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	17 phrase	det
14	clever	clever	ADJ	Degree=Pos	16 sounding	amod
15	-	-	PUNCT	_	14 clever	punct
16	sounding	sound	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	17 phrase	amod
17	phrase	phrase	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 meant	conj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	roles by
1	mean	past	It	nothing	vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent nothing=Topic
2	say speech: assert	past	the owl		vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent
3	sound	gerund			vn stimulus_subject-30.4 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Stimulus
4	is a	past	owl	a sounding phrase	tree rules

Option 4

No, it was a lovely saying

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	No	no	INTJ	Polarity=Neg	7 saying	discourse
2	,	,	PUNCT	_	1 No	punct
3	it	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	7 saying	nsubj
4	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	7 saying	cop
5	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	7 saying	det
6	lovely	lovely	ADJ	Degree=Pos	7 saying	amod
7	saying	saying	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is a	past	it	a lovely saying					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/992-pg27200-part203/t6/