Exam question 4 · Relative clauses

Ascertain, in the sentence «The cat sat on the mat that was black», which noun the relative clause describes.

Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 3 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: you, cat, mat, relative clause · What happens: ascertain, sit, be, describe · To what, where: sentence, mat, noun

This is exam question 4 of lesson 30 «Relative clauses» of the English 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	Ascertain	ascertain	VERB	Mood=Imp VerbForm=Fin	root	root
2	,	,	PUNCT	_	5 sentence	punct
3	in	in	ADP	_	5 sentence	case
4	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	5 sentence	det
5	sentence	sentence	NOUN	Number=Sing	1 Ascertain	obj
6	«	«	PUNCT	_	9 sat	punct
7	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	8 cat	det
8	cat	cat	NOUN	Number=Sing	9 sat	nsubj
9	sat	sit	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	5 sentence	acl:relcl
10	on	on	ADP	_	12 mat	case
11	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	12 mat	det
12	mat	mat	NOUN	Number=Sing	9 sat	obl
13	that	that	PRON	PronType=Rel	15 black	nsubj
14	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	15 black	cop
15	black	black	ADJ	Degree=Pos	12 mat	acl:relcl
16	»	»	PUNCT	_	15 black	punct
17	,	,	PUNCT	_	19 noun	punct
18	which	which	DET	PronType=Int	19 noun	det
19	noun	noun	NOUN	Number=Sing	12 mat	appos
20	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	22 clause	det
21	relative	relative	ADJ	Degree=Pos	22 clause	amod
22	clause	clause	NOUN	Number=Sing	23 describes	nsubj
23	describes	describe	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	19 noun	acl:relcl
24	.	.	PUNCT	_	1 Ascertain	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	other	roles by
1	ascertain	imperative	you not said here	the sentence			vn discover-84 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent sentence=Topic
2	sit in a quote	past	the cat	the sentence not said here	the mat		vn spatial_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V NP.theme PP»: agent=Agent sentence=Theme on mat=Location
3	is in a quote	past	the mat			black property	tree rules
4	describe	present	the relative clause	which noun not said here			vn characterize-29.2-1-1 «NP V NP S_ING»: agent=Agent noun=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

Both nouns equally

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Both	both	DET	PronType=Tot	2 nouns	det
2	nouns	noun	NOUN	Number=Plur	root	root
3	equally	equally	ADV	_	2 nouns	advmod

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

Option 2

The cat

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	2 cat	det
2	cat	cat	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root

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

Option 3 · ✓ the right answer

The mat

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	2 mat	det
2	mat	mat	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root

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

Option 4

No noun, the clause being adverbial

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	No	no	DET	PronType=Neg	2 noun	det
2	noun	noun	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 adverbial	nsubj
3	,	,	PUNCT	_	5 clause	punct
4	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	5 clause	det
5	clause	clause	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 noun	conj
6	being	be	AUX	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	7 adverbial	cop
7	adverbial	adverbial	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is a	gerund	no noun and the clause	adverbial					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.

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