Test 8 · ★ · Tense consistency and verb forms

What would happen if a story jumped tense in every sentence?

Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 2 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: story · What happens: happen, jump · To what, where: sentence

This is test 8 · ★ of lesson 31 «Tense consistency and verb forms» of the English 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	What	what	PRON	PronType=Int	3 happen	nsubj
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 happen	aux
3	happen	happen	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	if	if	SCONJ	_	7 jumped	mark
5	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	6 story	det
6	story	story	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 jumped	nsubj
7	jumped	jump	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 happen	advcl
8	tense	tense	ADJ	Degree=Pos	7 jumped	xcomp
9	in	in	ADP	_	11 sentence	case
10	every	every	DET	PronType=Tot	11 sentence	det
11	sentence	sentence	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 jumped	obl
12	?	?	PUNCT	_	3 happen	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	happen	would							vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
2	jump a condition, not said to happen	past	a story			every sentence		tense property	vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in sentence=Trajectory

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

Nothing, because readers ignore verbs

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Nothing	nothing	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Neg	root	root
2	,	,	PUNCT	_	5 ignore	punct
3	because	because	SCONJ	_	5 ignore	mark
4	readers	reader	NOUN	Number=Plur	5 ignore	nsubj
5	ignore	ignore	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	1 Nothing	acl:relcl
6	verbs	verb	NOUN	Number=Plur	5 ignore	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	ignore	present	readers	verbs					vn neglect-75.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent verb=Theme

Option 2 · ✓ the right answer

The reader would lose track of when things happen

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	2 reader	det
2	reader	reader	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 lose	nsubj
3	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	4 lose	aux
4	lose	lose	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
5	track	track	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 lose	obj
6	of	of	ADP	_	5 track	fixed
7	when	when	ADV	PronType=Int	9 happen	advmod
8	things	thing	NOUN	Number=Plur	9 happen	nsubj
9	happen	happen	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	4 lose	advcl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	lose	would	the reader	track					vn succeed-74-3-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent track=Eventuality
2	happen	present	things						vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme

Option 3

The story would become far more exciting and much clearer to follow

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	2 story	det
2	story	story	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 become	nsubj
3	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	4 become	aux
4	become	become	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
5	far	far	ADV	Degree=Pos	6 more	advmod
6	more	more	ADV	Degree=Cmp	7 exciting	advmod
7	exciting	exciting	ADJ	Degree=Pos	4 become	xcomp
8	and	and	CCONJ	_	10 clearer	cc
9	much	much	ADV	_	10 clearer	advmod
10	clearer	clear	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	7 exciting	conj
11	to	to	PART	_	12 follow	mark
12	follow	follow	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	10 clearer	xcomp

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	become	would	the story					exciting property	vn become-109.1-1-1 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Patient
2	follow	to-infinitive	the story not said here						vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme

Option 4

The story would turn into a poem

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	2 story	det
2	story	story	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 turn	nsubj
3	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	4 turn	aux
4	turn	turn	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
5	into	into	ADP	_	7 poem	case
6	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	7 poem	det
7	poem	poem	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 turn	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	turn	would	the story			a poem			vn roll-51.3.1 «NP V PP.trajectory»: agent=Theme into poem=Trajectory

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/english/31-tense-consistency-and-verb-forms/t8/