Test 1 · Today, tomorrow, now, later

my mate thinks míngtiān means "morning" cos "míng" sounds like morning. right?

Mova's choice: option 3 · The right answer: option 2 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: mate, míngtiān, míng · What happens: think, mean, sound · To what, where: morning cos · Speech: someone speaks here

This is test 1 of lesson 21 «Today, tomorrow, now, later» of the Chinese street 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	my	my	PRON	Case=Gen Number=Sing Person=1 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	2 mate	nmod:poss
2	mate	mate	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 thinks	nsubj
3	thinks	think	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
4	míngtiān	míngtiān	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 means	nsubj
5	means	mean	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	3 thinks	ccomp
6	"	"	PUNCT	_	7 morning	punct
7	morning	morning	NOUN	Number=Sing	9 cos	compound
8	"	"	PUNCT	_	7 morning	punct
9	cos	cos	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 means	obj
10	"	"	PUNCT	_	11 míng	punct
11	míng	míng	NOUN	Number=Sing	13 sounds	nsubj
12	"	"	PUNCT	_	11 míng	punct
13	sounds	sound	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	9 cos	acl:relcl
14	like	like	ADP	_	15 morning	case
15	morning	morning	NOUN	Number=Sing	13 sounds	obl
16	.	.	PUNCT	_	3 thinks	punct
17	right	right	INTJ	_	3 thinks	discourse
18	?	?	PUNCT	_	3 thinks	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	when	roles by
1	think speech: other	present	my mate			vn consider-29.9-2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Theme
2	mean	present	míngtiān	morning cos		vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent cos=Topic
3	sound	present	míng	morning cos not said here	morning	vn sound_emission-43.2 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location cos=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

Yes, it means "this morning"

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Yes	yes	INTJ	Polarity=Pos	4 means	discourse
2	,	,	PUNCT	_	1 Yes	punct
3	it	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	4 means	nsubj
4	means	mean	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
5	"	"	PUNCT	_	7 morning	punct
6	this	this	DET	Number=Sing PronType=Dem	7 morning	det
7	morning	morning	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 means	obj
8	"	"	PUNCT	_	7 morning	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	mean	present	it				morning		vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V S»: agent=Agent

Option 2 · ✓ the right answer

No, míngtiān is tomorrow; morning is zǎoshang

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	No	no	INTJ	Polarity=Neg	3 míngtiān	discourse
2	,	,	PUNCT	_	1 No	punct
3	míngtiān	míngtiān	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root
4	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	5 tomorrow	cop
5	tomorrow	tomorrow	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 míngtiān	nmod:unmarked
6	;	;	PUNCT	_	9 zǎoshang	punct
7	morning	morning	NOUN	Number=Sing	9 zǎoshang	compound
8	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	9 zǎoshang	cop
9	zǎoshang	zǎoshang	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 míngtiān	conj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is a	present		tomorrow					tree rules
2	is a	present		morning zǎoshang					tree rules

Option 3 · ← Mova's choice

No, míngtiān means yesterday, the day before

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	No	no	INTJ	Polarity=Neg	4 means	discourse
2	,	,	PUNCT	_	4 means	punct
3	míngtiān	míngtiān	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 means	nsubj
4	means	mean	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
5	yesterday	yesterday	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 means	obj
6	,	,	PUNCT	_	8 day	punct
7	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	8 day	det
8	day	day	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 means	obl
9	before	before	ADV	_	8 day	advmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	mean	present	míngtiān				day; yesterday		vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V S»: agent=Agent

Option 4

Yes, míngtiān is morning, he's spot on

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Yes	yes	INTJ	Polarity=Pos	5 morning	discourse
2	,	,	PUNCT	_	1 Yes	punct
3	míngtiān	míngtiān	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 morning	compound
4	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	5 morning	cop
5	morning	morning	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root
6	,	,	PUNCT	_	5 morning	punct
7	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	9 spot	nsubj
8	's	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	9 spot	aux:pass
9	spot	spot	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	5 morning	acl
10	on	on	ADP	_	9 spot	compound:prt

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is a	present		míngtiān morning					tree rules
2	spot on	present · passive		he					vn fill-9.8-1 «NP V NP»: subject=Destination

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/chinese-street/21-today-tomorrow-now-later/t1/