Test 5 · Commas: lists, clauses and clarity

What would happen if Ahmed took every comma out of "Before eating, the cat washed its paws"?

Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 4 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: Ahmed, cat · What happens: happen, take, eat, wash · To what, where: comma, paws

This is test 5 of lesson 33 «Commas: lists, clauses and clarity» 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	_	6 took	mark
5	Ahmed	Ahmed	PROPN	Number=Sing	6 took	nsubj
6	took	take	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 happen	advcl
7	every	every	DET	PronType=Tot	8 comma	det
8	comma	comma	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 took	obj
9	out	out	ADP	_	13 eating	mark
10	of	of	SCONJ	_	13 eating	mark
11	"	"	PUNCT	_	13 eating	punct
12	Before	before	SCONJ	_	13 eating	mark
13	eating	eat	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	6 took	advcl
14	,	,	PUNCT	_	17 washed	punct
15	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	16 cat	det
16	cat	cat	NOUN	Number=Sing	17 washed	nsubj
17	washed	wash	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	6 took	conj
18	its	its	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	19 paws	nmod:poss
19	paws	paw	NOUN	Number=Plur	17 washed	obj
20	"	"	PUNCT	_	17 washed	punct
21	?	?	PUNCT	_	3 happen	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	roles by
1	happen	would			vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
2	take a condition, not said to happen	past	Ahmed	every comma	vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent comma=Theme
3	eat in a quote	gerund	Ahmed not said here		vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent
4	wash in a quote	past	the cat	cat's paws	vn floss-41.2.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent paw=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.

The options

Option 1 · ← Mova's choice

It would become a question

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	3 become	nsubj
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 become	aux
3	become	become	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	5 question	det
5	question	question	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 become	xcomp

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	become	would	It	a question					vn become-109.1-1-1 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Patient

Option 2

Nothing, it means exactly the same thing

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Nothing	nothing	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Neg	4 means	nsubj
2	,	,	PUNCT	_	1 Nothing	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	exactly	exactly	ADV	_	8 thing	advmod
6	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	8 thing	det
7	same	same	ADJ	Degree=Pos	8 thing	amod
8	thing	thing	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 means	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	mean	present	Nothing	the same thing					vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent thing=Topic

Option 3

It would become a comma splice

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	3 become	nsubj
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 become	aux
3	become	become	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	6 splice	det
5	comma	comma	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 splice	compound
6	splice	splice	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 become	xcomp

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	become	would	It	a comma splice					vn become-109.1-1-1 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Patient

Option 4 · ✓ the right answer

It would sound like someone ate the cat

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	3 sound	nsubj
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 sound	aux
3	sound	sound	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	like	like	SCONJ	_	6 ate	mark
5	someone	someone	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Ind	6 ate	nsubj
6	ate	eat	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 sound	advcl
7	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	8 cat	det
8	cat	cat	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 ate	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	sound	would	It						vn stimulus_subject-30.4 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Stimulus
2	eat	past	someone	the cat					vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent cat=Patient

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/33-commas-lists-clauses-and-clarity/t5/