Exam question 1 · Standard English and dialect: "we was" in talk, "we were"…

Identify the sentence composed in Standard English.

Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 2 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: you · What happens: identify, compose · To what, where: sentence, Standard English

This is exam question 1 of lesson 38 «Standard English and dialect: "we was" in talk, "we were" in writing» 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	composed	compose	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	3 sentence	acl
5	in	in	ADP	_	7 English	case
6	Standard	Standard	PROPN	Number=Sing	7 English	compound
7	English	English	PROPN	Number=Sing	4 composed	obl
8	.	.	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 sentence					vn characterize-29.2-1-1 «NP V NP S_ING»: agent=Agent sentence=Theme
2	compose	participle		the sentence not said here		Standard English			vn create-26.4-1 «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

Us was late for school.

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Us	Us	PROPN	Number=Sing	3 late	nsubj
2	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 late	cop
3	late	late	ADJ	Degree=Pos	root	root
4	for	for	ADP	_	5 school	case
5	school	school	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 late	obl
6	.	.	PUNCT	_	3 late	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is	past	Us					for school; late property	tree rules

Option 2 · ✓ the right answer

We were late for school.

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	5 school	nsubj
2	were	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=1 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	5 school	cop
3	late	late	ADV	Degree=Pos	5 school	advmod
4	for	for	ADP	_	5 school	case
5	school	school	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root
6	.	.	PUNCT	_	5 school	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is	past	We					for school; late property	tree rules

Option 3

We been late for school.

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	5 school	nsubj
2	been	be	AUX	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part	5 school	cop
3	late	late	ADV	Degree=Pos	5 school	advmod
4	for	for	ADP	_	5 school	case
5	school	school	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root
6	.	.	PUNCT	_	5 school	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is	participle	We					for school; late property	tree rules

Option 4

We was late for school.

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	3 late	nsubj
2	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 late	cop
3	late	late	ADJ	Degree=Pos	root	root
4	for	for	ADP	_	5 school	case
5	school	school	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 late	obl
6	.	.	PUNCT	_	3 late	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is	past	We					for school; late property	tree rules

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/38-standard-english-and-dialect-we-was-and-we-were/e1/