Exam question 1 · Apostrophes: missing letters and belonging
Identify the correctly punctuated form denoting the toys belonging to a group of children.
Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 3 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: you, punctuated form, toys · What happens: identify, punctuate, denote, belong · To what, where: punctuated form, toys
This is exam question 1 of lesson 34 «Apostrophes: missing letters and belonging» 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 | Identify | identify | VERB | Mood=Imp VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 2 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 5 form | det |
| 3 | correctly | correctly | ADV | _ | 4 punctuated | advmod |
| 4 | punctuated | punctuate | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | 5 form | amod |
| 5 | form | form | NOUN | Number=Sing | 1 Identify | obj |
| 6 | denoting | denote | VERB | VerbForm=Ger | 5 form | acl |
| 7 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 8 toys | det |
| 8 | toys | toy | NOUN | Number=Plur | 6 denoting | obj |
| 9 | belonging | belong | VERB | VerbForm=Ger | 8 toys | acl |
| 10 | to | to | ADP | _ | 12 group | case |
| 11 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 12 group | det |
| 12 | group | group | NOUN | Number=Sing | 9 belonging | obl |
| 13 | of | of | ADP | _ | 14 children | case |
| 14 | children | child | NOUN | Number=Plur | 12 group | nmod |
| 15 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 1 Identify | punct |
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | identify | imperative | you not said here | the punctuated form | vn characterize-29.2-1-1 «NP V NP S_ING»: agent=Agent form=Theme | ||||
| 2 | punctuate | participle | correctly property | vn butter-9.9 «NP V NP.destination»: agent=Agent | |||||
| 3 | denote | gerund | the punctuated form not said here | the toys | vn indicate-78 «NP V NP»: agent=Pivot toy=Topic | ||||
| 4 | belong | gerund | the toys not said here | to a group of children | vn attend-107.4-2 «NP V PP»: agent=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
the childrens toys'
The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)
| # | word | lemma | UPOS | features | head | relation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 2 childrens | det |
| 2 | childrens | children | NOUN | Number=Plur | 3 toys | compound |
| 3 | toys | toy | NOUN | Number=Plur | root | root |
| 4 | ' | 's | PART | _ | 3 toys | case |
The frames reader finds no event or fact in this sentence.
Option 2
the children'ss toys
The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)
| # | word | lemma | UPOS | features | head | relation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 3 toys | det |
| 2 | children'ss | children'ss | NOUN | Number=Sing | 3 toys | compound |
| 3 | toys | toy | NOUN | Number=Plur | root | root |
The frames reader finds no event or fact in this sentence.
Option 3 · ✓ the right answer
the children's toys
The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)
| # | word | lemma | UPOS | features | head | relation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 2 children | det |
| 2 | children | child | NOUN | Number=Plur | 4 toys | nmod:poss |
| 3 | 's | 's | PART | _ | 2 children | case |
| 4 | toys | toy | NOUN | Number=Plur | root | root |
The frames reader finds no event or fact in this sentence.
Option 4
the childrens' toys
The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)
| # | word | lemma | UPOS | features | head | relation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 2 childrens | det |
| 2 | childrens | children | NOUN | Number=Plur | 4 toys | nmod:poss |
| 3 | ' | 's | PART | _ | 2 childrens | case |
| 4 | toys | toy | NOUN | Number=Plur | 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/34-apostrophes-missing-letters-and-belonging/e1/