Test 4 · ★★★ · Brackets, dashes, colons, semicolons and hyphens

What would happen if the hyphen fell out of "man-eating shark"?

Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 1 · right ✓ · Who acts: hyphen · What happens: happen, fall, eat · To what, where: eating shark

This is test 4 · ★★★ of lesson 36 «Brackets, dashes, colons, semicolons and hyphens» 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 fell	mark
5	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	6 hyphen	det
6	hyphen	hyphen	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 fell	nsubj
7	fell	fall	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 happen	advcl
8	out	out	ADP	_	14 shark	case
9	of	of	ADP	_	14 shark	case
10	"	"	PUNCT	_	14 shark	punct
11	man	man	NOUN	Number=Sing	13 eating	compound
12	-	-	PUNCT	_	11 man	punct
13	eating	eat	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	14 shark	amod
14	shark	shark	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 fell	obl
15	"	"	PUNCT	_	7 fell	punct
16	?	?	PUNCT	_	3 happen	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	where	roles by
1	happen	would			vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
2	fall a condition, not said to happen	past	the hyphen	eating shark	vn occur-48.3 «NP V PP»: agent=Theme out shark=Location
3	eat in a quote	gerund			vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent

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 right answer

It could mean a man eating a shark

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 mean	nsubj
2	could	could	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 mean	aux
3	mean	mean	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	5 man	det
5	man	man	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 mean	obj
6	eating	eat	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	5 man	acl
7	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	8 shark	det
8	shark	shark	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 eating	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	mean	could	It	a man					vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent man=Topic
2	eat	gerund	a man not said here	a shark					vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent shark=Patient

Option 2

It would still mean exactly the same

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	4 mean	nsubj
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	4 mean	aux
3	still	still	ADV	_	4 mean	advmod
4	mean	mean	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
5	exactly	exactly	ADV	_	7 same	advmod
6	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	7 same	det
7	same	same	ADJ	Degree=Pos	4 mean	xcomp

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	mean	would	It				still	same property	vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V S»: agent=Agent

Option 3

It would mean the shark is a man

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 mean	nsubj
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 mean	aux
3	mean	mean	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	5 shark	det
5	shark	shark	NOUN	Number=Sing	8 man	nsubj
6	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	8 man	cop
7	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	8 man	det
8	man	man	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 mean	ccomp

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	mean	would	It						vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V S»: agent=Agent
2	is a	present	the shark	a man					tree rules

Option 4

It would mean a shark eating a man's dinner

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 mean	nsubj
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 mean	aux
3	mean	mean	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	5 shark	det
5	shark	shark	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 mean	obj
6	eating	eat	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	5 shark	acl
7	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	8 man	det
8	man	man	NOUN	Number=Sing	10 dinner	nmod:poss
9	's	's	PART	_	8 man	case
10	dinner	dinner	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 eating	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	mean	would	It	a shark					vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent shark=Topic
2	eat	gerund	a shark not said here	a man's dinner					vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent dinner=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/36-brackets-dashes-colons-semicolons-and-hyphens/t4/