Exam question 1 · Brackets, dashes, colons, semicolons and hyphens

Identify the sentence in which a colon is correctly employed to introduce a list.

Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 2 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: you · What happens: identify, employ, introduce · To what, where: sentence, colon, list

This is exam question 1 of lesson 36 «Brackets, dashes, colons, semicolons and hyphens» 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	3 sentence	det
3	sentence	sentence	NOUN	Number=Sing	1 Identify	obj
4	in	in	ADP	_	5 which	case
5	which	which	PRON	PronType=Rel	10 employed	obl
6	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	7 colon	det
7	colon	colon	NOUN	Number=Sing	10 employed	nsubj:pass
8	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	10 employed	aux
9	correctly	correctly	ADV	_	10 employed	advmod
10	employed	employ	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	3 sentence	acl:relcl
11	to	to	PART	_	12 introduce	mark
12	introduce	introduce	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	10 employed	xcomp
13	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	14 list	det
14	list	list	NOUN	Number=Sing	12 introduce	obj
15	.	.	PUNCT	_	1 Identify	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	other	roles by
1	identify	imperative	you not said here	the sentence			vn characterize-29.2-1-1 «NP V NP S_ING»: agent=Agent sentence=Theme
2	employ	present · passive		a colon	the sentence	correctly property	vn hire-13.5.3 «NP V NP to be NP»: subject=Theme clause=Attribute
3	introduce	to-infinitive		a list			vn amalgamate-22.2-3-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent list=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

The recipe: requires three ingredients flour, eggs and milk.

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	2 recipe	det
2	recipe	recipe	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 requires	nsubj
3	:	:	PUNCT	_	2 recipe	punct
4	requires	require	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
5	three	three	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	6 ingredients	nummod
6	ingredients	ingredient	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 requires	obj
7	flour	flour	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 ingredients	appos
8	,	,	PUNCT	_	9 eggs	punct
9	eggs	egg	NOUN	Number=Plur	7 flour	conj
10	and	and	CCONJ	_	11 milk	cc
11	milk	milk	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 flour	conj
12	.	.	PUNCT	_	4 requires	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	require	present	the recipe	three ingredients					vn require-103-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme ingredient=Precondition

Option 2 · ✓ the right answer

The recipe requires three ingredients: flour, eggs and milk.

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	2 recipe	det
2	recipe	recipe	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 requires	nsubj
3	requires	require	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
4	three	three	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	5 ingredients	nummod
5	ingredients	ingredient	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 requires	obj
6	:	:	PUNCT	_	7 flour	punct
7	flour	flour	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 ingredients	appos
8	,	,	PUNCT	_	9 eggs	punct
9	eggs	egg	NOUN	Number=Plur	7 flour	conj
10	and	and	CCONJ	_	11 milk	cc
11	milk	milk	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 flour	conj
12	.	.	PUNCT	_	3 requires	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	require	present	the recipe	three ingredients					vn require-103-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme ingredient=Precondition

Option 3

The recipe requires three: ingredients flour, eggs and milk.

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	2 recipe	det
2	recipe	recipe	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 requires	nsubj
3	requires	require	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
4	three	three	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	3 requires	obj
5	:	:	PUNCT	_	7 flour	punct
6	ingredients	ingredient	NOUN	Number=Plur	7 flour	compound
7	flour	flour	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 requires	obl
8	,	,	PUNCT	_	9 eggs	punct
9	eggs	egg	NOUN	Number=Plur	7 flour	conj
10	and	and	CCONJ	_	11 milk	cc
11	milk	milk	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 flour	conj
12	.	.	PUNCT	_	3 requires	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	require	present	the recipe	three				ingredients flour and eggs and milk obl	vn require-103-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme three=Precondition

Option 4

The recipe requires: three ingredients flour, eggs and milk.

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	2 recipe	det
2	recipe	recipe	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 requires	nsubj
3	requires	require	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
4	:	:	PUNCT	_	7 flour	punct
5	three	three	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	6 ingredients	nummod
6	ingredients	ingredient	NOUN	Number=Plur	7 flour	compound
7	flour	flour	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 requires	obl
8	,	,	PUNCT	_	9 eggs	punct
9	eggs	egg	NOUN	Number=Plur	7 flour	conj
10	and	and	CCONJ	_	11 milk	cc
11	milk	milk	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 flour	conj
12	.	.	PUNCT	_	3 requires	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	require	present	the recipe	ingredients flour and eggs and milk					vn require-103-1 «NP V NP S_INF»: agent=Theme

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/36-brackets-dashes-colons-semicolons-and-hyphens/e1/