Test 2 · ★★ · Active and passive voice, modal verbs
★★★ "The cake was eaten." How many people could have eaten it, from the sentence alone?
Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 3 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: many people · What happens: eat · To what, where: ★ ★ ★, ★
This is test 2 · ★★ of lesson 32 «Active and passive voice, modal verbs» 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
Sentence 1: ★★★ "The cake was eaten."
The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)
| # | word | lemma | UPOS | features | head | relation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ★ | ★ | PROPN | Number=Sing | 3 ★ | compound |
| 2 | ★ | ★ | NOUN | Number=Sing | 3 ★ | compound |
| 3 | ★ | ★ | NOUN | Number=Sing | 8 eaten | nsubj:pass |
| 4 | " | " | PUNCT | _ | 8 eaten | punct |
| 5 | The | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 6 cake | det |
| 6 | cake | cake | NOUN | Number=Sing | 8 eaten | nsubj |
| 7 | was | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 8 eaten | aux:pass |
| 8 | eaten | eat | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | root | root |
| 9 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 8 eaten | punct |
| 10 | " | " | PUNCT | _ | 8 eaten | punct |
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | eat in a quote | past · passive | ★ ★ ★ | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: subject=Patient |
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.
Sentence 2: How many people could have eaten it, from the sentence alone?
The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)
| # | word | lemma | UPOS | features | head | relation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | How | how | ADV | PronType=Int | 2 many | advmod |
| 2 | many | many | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 3 people | amod |
| 3 | people | people | NOUN | Number=Plur | 6 eaten | nsubj |
| 4 | could | could | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 6 eaten | aux |
| 5 | have | have | AUX | VerbForm=Inf | 6 eaten | aux |
| 6 | eaten | eat | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part | root | root |
| 7 | it | it | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 6 eaten | obj |
| 8 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 11 sentence | punct |
| 9 | from | from | ADP | _ | 11 sentence | case |
| 10 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 11 sentence | det |
| 11 | sentence | sentence | NOUN | Number=Sing | 6 eaten | conj |
| 12 | alone | alone | ADV | _ | 11 sentence | advmod |
| 13 | ? | ? | PUNCT | _ | 6 eaten | punct |
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | eat | could · perfect | many people | ★ | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Patient |
The options
Option 1 · ← Mova's choice
Nobody
The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)
| # | word | lemma | UPOS | features | head | relation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Nobody | nobody | PRON | Number=Sing PronType=Neg | root | root |
The frames reader finds no event or fact in this sentence.
Option 2
Exactly two
The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)
| # | word | lemma | UPOS | features | head | relation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Exactly | exactly | ADV | _ | 2 two | advmod |
| 2 | two | two | NUM | NumForm=Word NumType=Card | root | root |
The frames reader finds no event or fact in this sentence.
Option 3 · ✓ the right answer
We cannot tell
The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)
| # | word | lemma | UPOS | features | head | relation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | We | we | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=1 PronType=Prs | 4 tell | nsubj |
| 2 | can | can | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 4 tell | aux |
| 3 | not | not | PART | Polarity=Neg | 4 tell | advmod |
| 4 | tell | tell | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | root | root |
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | not tell speech: assert | can | We | vn transfer_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
Option 4
Exactly one
The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)
| # | word | lemma | UPOS | features | head | relation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Exactly | exactly | ADV | _ | 2 one | advmod |
| 2 | one | one | NUM | NumForm=Word NumType=Card | root | root |
The frames reader finds no event or fact in this sentence.
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/32-active-and-passive-voice-modal-verbs/t2/