Test 3 · Soft words for hard things: weight and pregnancy and birth
News: "Witnesses describe the suspect as a heavyset man in his forties." What did the suspect look like?
Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 2 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: News Witnesses, suspect · What happens: describe, do, look · To what, where: suspect, forties
This is test 3 of lesson 10 «Soft words for hard things: weight and pregnancy and birth» of the euphemisms 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
Sentence 1: News: "Witnesses describe the suspect as a heavyset man in his forties."
The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)
| # | word | lemma | UPOS | features | head | relation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | News | news | NOUN | Number=Sing | 4 Witnesses | compound |
| 2 | : | : | PUNCT | _ | 1 News | punct |
| 3 | " | " | PUNCT | _ | 1 News | punct |
| 4 | Witnesses | witness | NOUN | Number=Plur | 5 describe | nsubj |
| 5 | describe | describe | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 6 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 7 suspect | det |
| 7 | suspect | suspect | NOUN | Number=Sing | 5 describe | obj |
| 8 | as | as | ADP | _ | 11 man | case |
| 9 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 11 man | det |
| 10 | heavyset | heavyset | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 11 man | amod |
| 11 | man | man | NOUN | Number=Sing | 5 describe | obl |
| 12 | in | in | ADP | _ | 14 forties | case |
| 13 | his | his | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 14 forties | nmod:poss |
| 14 | forties | forty | NOUN | Number=Plur | 5 describe | obl |
| 15 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 5 describe | punct |
| 16 | " | " | PUNCT | _ | 5 describe | punct |
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | describe in a quote | present | News Witnesses | the suspect | man's forties | as a heavyset man | vn characterize-29.2-1-1 «NP V NP S_ING»: agent=Agent suspect=Theme as man=Attribute |
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.
Sentence 2: What did the suspect look like?
The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)
| # | word | lemma | UPOS | features | head | relation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | What | what | PRON | PronType=Int | 2 did | nsubj |
| 2 | did | do | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 3 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 4 suspect | det |
| 4 | suspect | suspect | NOUN | Number=Sing | 5 look | nsubj |
| 5 | look | look | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 2 did | parataxis |
| 6 | like | like | ADP | _ | 5 look | obl |
| 7 | ? | ? | PUNCT | _ | 2 did | punct |
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | do | past | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent | ||||||
| 2 | look | infinitive | the suspect | vn stimulus_subject-30.4 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Stimulus |
The options
Option 1 · ← Mova's choice
Very tired
The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)
| # | word | lemma | UPOS | features | head | relation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Very | very | ADV | _ | 2 tired | advmod |
| 2 | tired | tired | ADJ | Degree=Pos | root | root |
The frames reader finds no event or fact in this sentence.
Option 2 · ✓ the right answer
Fat or heavily built
The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)
| # | word | lemma | UPOS | features | head | relation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Fat | fat | NOUN | Number=Sing | root | root |
| 2 | or | or | CCONJ | _ | 4 built | cc |
| 3 | heavily | heavily | ADV | _ | 4 built | advmod |
| 4 | built | build | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | 1 Fat | conj |
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | build | participle | heavily property | vn calibratable_cos-45.6.1 «NP.attribute V»: agent=Attribute |
Option 3
Carrying heavy bags of shopping
The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)
| # | word | lemma | UPOS | features | head | relation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Carrying | carry | VERB | Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part | root | root |
| 2 | heavy | heavy | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 3 bags | amod |
| 3 | bags | bag | NOUN | Number=Plur | 1 Carrying | obj |
| 4 | of | of | ADP | _ | 5 shopping | case |
| 5 | shopping | shopping | NOUN | Number=Sing | 3 bags | nmod |
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | carry | gerund | heavy bags of shopping | vn carry-11.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent bag=Theme |
Option 4
Very short
The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)
| # | word | lemma | UPOS | features | head | relation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Very | very | ADV | _ | 2 short | advmod |
| 2 | short | short | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 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/euphemisms/10-weight-and-babies/t3/