Exam question 4 · Soft words for hard things: business and advertising and p…

Ascertain the plain meaning of "revenue enhancement" when employed by a legislator in respect of fiscal policy.

Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 3 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: you · What happens: ascertain, employ, mean, respect · To what, where: plain meaning, revenue enhancement, fiscal policy

This is exam question 4 of lesson 23 «Soft words for hard things: business and advertising and politics and government spin» of the euphemisms 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	Ascertain	ascertain	VERB	Mood=Imp VerbForm=Fin	root	root
2	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	4 meaning	det
3	plain	plain	ADJ	Degree=Pos	4 meaning	amod
4	meaning	meaning	NOUN	Number=Sing	1 Ascertain	obj
5	of	of	ADP	_	8 enhancement	case
6	"	"	PUNCT	_	8 enhancement	punct
7	revenue	revenue	NOUN	Number=Sing	8 enhancement	compound
8	enhancement	enhancement	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 meaning	nmod
9	"	"	PUNCT	_	8 enhancement	punct
10	when	when	ADV	PronType=Int	11 employed	advmod
11	employed	employ	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	8 enhancement	acl
12	by	by	ADP	_	14 legislator	case
13	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	14 legislator	det
14	legislator	legislator	NOUN	Number=Sing	11 employed	obl
15	in	in	ADP	_	16 respect	case
16	respect	respect	NOUN	Number=Sing	14 legislator	nmod
17	of	of	ADP	_	19 policy	case
18	fiscal	fiscal	ADJ	Degree=Pos	19 policy	amod
19	policy	policy	NOUN	Number=Sing	16 respect	nmod
20	.	.	PUNCT	_	1 Ascertain	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	other	roles by
1	ascertain	imperative	you not said here	the plain meaning of revenue enhancement		vn discover-84 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent meaning=Topic
2	employ	participle			by a legislator in respect of fiscal policy	vn hire-13.5.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent
3	mean			revenue enhancement		nom meaning «communication transitive»: of=patient
4	respect			fiscal policy		nom respect «cognition transitive»: of=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

A reduction in taxation

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	A	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	2 reduction	det
2	reduction	reduction	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root
3	in	in	ADP	_	4 taxation	case
4	taxation	taxation	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 reduction	nmod

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

Option 2

An increase in public salaries

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	An	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	2 increase	det
2	increase	increase	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root
3	in	in	ADP	_	5 salaries	case
4	public	public	ADJ	Degree=Pos	5 salaries	amod
5	salaries	salary	NOUN	Number=Plur	2 increase	nmod

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

Option 3 · ✓ the right answer

An increase in taxation

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	An	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	2 increase	det
2	increase	increase	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root
3	in	in	ADP	_	4 taxation	case
4	taxation	taxation	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 increase	nmod

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

Option 4

An improvement to the collection website

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	An	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	2 improvement	det
2	improvement	improvement	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root
3	to	to	ADP	_	6 website	case
4	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	6 website	det
5	collection	collection	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 website	compound
6	website	website	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 improvement	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/23-fees-bugs-and-spin/e4/