Exam question 4 · SATs: grammar, punctuation and spelling paper

Determine the punctuation mark that may properly conjoin two closely related independent clauses.

Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 1 · right ✓ · Who acts: you, punctuation mark · What happens: determine, conjoin · To what, where: punctuation mark, two related independent clauses

This is exam question 4 of lesson 52 «SATs: grammar, punctuation and spelling paper» 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	Determine	determine	VERB	Mood=Imp VerbForm=Fin	root	root
2	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	4 mark	det
3	punctuation	punctuation	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 mark	compound
4	mark	mark	NOUN	Number=Sing	1 Determine	obj
5	that	that	PRON	PronType=Rel	8 conjoin	nsubj
6	may	may	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	8 conjoin	aux
7	properly	properly	ADV	_	8 conjoin	advmod
8	conjoin	conjoin	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	4 mark	acl:relcl
9	two	two	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	13 clauses	nummod
10	closely	closely	ADV	_	11 related	advmod
11	related	related	ADJ	Degree=Pos	13 clauses	amod
12	independent	independent	ADJ	Degree=Pos	13 clauses	amod
13	clauses	clause	NOUN	Number=Plur	8 conjoin	obj
14	.	.	PUNCT	_	1 Determine	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	determine	imperative	you not said here	the punctuation mark					vn discover-84 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent mark=Topic
2	conjoin	may	the punctuation mark	two related independent clauses				properly property	vn amalgamate-22.2-2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent clause=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 right answer

The semicolon

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	2 semicolon	det
2	semicolon	semicolon	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root

The frames reader finds no event or fact in this sentence.

Option 2

The apostrophe

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	2 apostrophe	det
2	apostrophe	apostrophe	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root

The frames reader finds no event or fact in this sentence.

Option 3

The hyphen

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	2 hyphen	det
2	hyphen	hyphen	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root

The frames reader finds no event or fact in this sentence.

Option 4

The question mark

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	3 mark	det
2	question	question	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 mark	compound
3	mark	mark	NOUN	Number=Sing	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/52-sats-grammar-punctuation-and-spelling-paper/e4/