Test 9 · ★ · Soft words for hard things: work, firing and the economy a…
The boss announces "efficiency gains" next year. What should the staff worry about?
Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 3 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: boss, staff · What happens: announce, worry · To what, where: efficiency gains
This is test 9 · ★ of lesson 22 «Soft words for hard things: work, firing and the economy and business and advertising» 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: The boss announces "efficiency gains" next year.
The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)
| # | word | lemma | UPOS | features | head | relation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 2 boss | det |
| 2 | boss | boss | NOUN | Number=Sing | 3 announces | nsubj |
| 3 | announces | announce | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 4 | " | " | PUNCT | _ | 6 gains | punct |
| 5 | efficiency | efficiency | NOUN | Number=Sing | 6 gains | compound |
| 6 | gains | gain | NOUN | Number=Plur | 3 announces | obj |
| 7 | " | " | PUNCT | _ | 6 gains | punct |
| 8 | next | next | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 9 year | amod |
| 9 | year | year | NOUN | Number=Sing | 3 announces | obl:unmarked |
| 10 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 3 announces | punct |
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | announce speech: other | present | the boss | efficiency gains | year | vn reflexive_appearance-48.1.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent gain=Theme |
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 should the staff worry about?
The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)
| # | word | lemma | UPOS | features | head | relation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | What | what | PRON | PronType=Int | root | root |
| 2 | should | should | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 1 What | aux |
| 3 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 4 staff | det |
| 4 | staff | staff | NOUN | Number=Plur | 5 worry | nsubj |
| 5 | worry | worry | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 1 What | acl:relcl |
| 6 | about | about | ADP | _ | 5 worry | obl |
| 7 | ? | ? | PUNCT | _ | 1 What | punct |
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | worry | present | the staff | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V ADV-Middle»: agent=Experiencer |
The options
Option 1 · ← Mova's choice
Faster lifts
The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)
| # | word | lemma | UPOS | features | head | relation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Faster | fast | ADJ | Degree=Cmp | 2 lifts | amod |
| 2 | lifts | lift | NOUN | Number=Plur | root | root |
The frames reader finds no event or fact in this sentence.
Option 2
New chairs
The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)
| # | word | lemma | UPOS | features | head | relation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | New | new | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 2 chairs | amod |
| 2 | chairs | chair | NOUN | Number=Plur | root | root |
The frames reader finds no event or fact in this sentence.
Option 3 · ✓ the right answer
Some jobs may be cut
The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)
| # | word | lemma | UPOS | features | head | relation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Some | some | DET | PronType=Ind | 2 jobs | det |
| 2 | jobs | job | NOUN | Number=Plur | 5 cut | nsubj:pass |
| 3 | may | may | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 5 cut | aux |
| 4 | be | be | AUX | VerbForm=Inf | 5 cut | aux:pass |
| 5 | cut | cut | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | root | root |
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | cut | may · passive | some jobs | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: subject=Product |
Option 4
Free fruit in the kitchen
The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)
| # | word | lemma | UPOS | features | head | relation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Free | free | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 2 fruit | amod |
| 2 | fruit | fruit | NOUN | Number=Sing | root | root |
| 3 | in | in | ADP | _ | 5 kitchen | case |
| 4 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 5 kitchen | det |
| 5 | kitchen | kitchen | NOUN | Number=Sing | 2 fruit | nmod |
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/22-jobs-shops-and-estate-agents/t9/