Test 11 · ★ · Soft words for hard things: death and dying, illness and t…

Grandma says "When I was young, we didn't say cancer, we said the big C." Why did people do that?

Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 1 · right ✓ · Who acts: Grandma, we, people · What happens: say, be, not say, do · To what, where: cancer, big C., that · Speech: someone speaks here

This is test 11 · ★ of lesson 3 «Soft words for hard things: death and dying, illness and the body» 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

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Grandma	grandma	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 says	nsubj
2	says	say	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	"	"	PUNCT	_	7 young	punct
4	When	when	ADV	PronType=Int	7 young	advmod
5	I	I	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs	7 young	nsubj
6	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	7 young	cop
7	young	young	ADJ	Degree=Pos	2 says	ccomp
8	,	,	PUNCT	_	12 say	punct
9	we	we	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=1 PronType=Prs	12 say	nsubj
10	did	do	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=1 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	12 say	aux
11	n't	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	12 say	advmod
12	say	say	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	7 young	conj
13	cancer	cancer	NOUN	Number=Sing	12 say	obj
14	,	,	PUNCT	_	16 said	punct
15	we	we	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=1 PronType=Prs	16 said	nsubj
16	said	say	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=1 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	12 say	ccomp
17	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	19 C.	det
18	big	big	ADJ	Degree=Pos	19 C.	amod
19	C.	c.	NOUN	Number=Sing	16 said	obj
20	"	"	PUNCT	_	24 do	punct
21	Why	why	ADV	PronType=Int	24 do	advmod
22	did	do	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	24 do	aux
23	people	people	NOUN	Number=Plur	24 do	nsubj
24	do	do	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	16 said	conj
25	that	that	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Dem	24 do	obj
26	?	?	PUNCT	_	2 says	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	other	roles by
1	say speech: assert	present	Grandma			vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent
2	is in a quote	past	Grandma		young property	tree rules
3	not say speech: assert in a quote	past · do-support	we	cancer		tree rules
4	say speech: assert in a quote	past	we	the big C.		vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent c.=Topic
5	do	past · do-support	people	that		vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent that=Eventuality

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

They were afraid to say the frightening word

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	They	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	3 afraid	nsubj
2	were	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 afraid	cop
3	afraid	afraid	ADJ	Degree=Pos	root	root
4	to	to	PART	_	5 say	mark
5	say	say	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	3 afraid	xcomp
6	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	8 word	det
7	frightening	frightening	ADJ	Degree=Pos	8 word	amod
8	word	word	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 say	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is	past	They					afraid property	tree rules
2	say speech: assert	to-infinitive	They not said here	the frightening word					vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent word=Topic

Option 2

It was shorter to write

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	It	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	3 shorter	nsubj
2	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 shorter	cop
3	shorter	short	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	root	root
4	to	to	PART	_	5 write	mark
5	write	write	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	3 shorter	xcomp

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is	past	It					short property	tree rules
2	write	to-infinitive							vn scribble-25.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent

Option 3

It was a kind of letter game

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	It	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	4 kind	nsubj
2	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	4 kind	cop
3	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	4 kind	det
4	kind	kind	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root
5	of	of	ADP	_	7 game	case
6	letter	letter	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 game	compound
7	game	game	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 kind	nmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is a	past	It	a kind				of letter game	tree rules

Option 4

It was a medical code

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	It	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	5 code	nsubj
2	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	5 code	cop
3	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	5 code	det
4	medical	medical	ADJ	Degree=Pos	5 code	amod
5	code	code	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is a	past	It	a medical code					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/euphemisms/3-death-and-feeling-poorly/t11/