Test 8 · Soft words for hard things: failure and mistakes

"ugh, the whole plan went south when the car broke down" What happened to the plan?

Mova's choice: option 2 · The right answer: option 3 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: whole plan, car · What happens: go, break down, happen

This is test 8 of lesson 33 «Soft words for hard things: failure and mistakes» 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	"	"	PUNCT	_	7 went	punct
2	ugh	ugh	INTJ	_	7 went	discourse
3	,	,	PUNCT	_	2 ugh	punct
4	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	6 plan	det
5	whole	whole	ADJ	Degree=Pos	6 plan	amod
6	plan	plan	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 went	nsubj
7	went	go	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
8	south	south	ADV	_	7 went	advmod
9	when	when	ADV	PronType=Int	12 broke	advmod
10	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	11 car	det
11	car	car	NOUN	Number=Sing	12 broke	nsubj
12	broke	break	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	7 went	advcl
13	down	down	ADP	_	12 broke	compound:prt
14	"	"	PUNCT	_	16 happened	punct
15	What	what	PRON	PronType=Int	16 happened	nsubj
16	happened	happen	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	12 broke	conj
17	to	to	ADP	_	19 plan	case
18	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	19 plan	det
19	plan	plan	NOUN	Number=Sing	16 happened	obl
20	?	?	PUNCT	_	7 went	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	other	roles by
1	go in a quote	past	the whole plan	south property	vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
2	break down in a quote	past	the car		vn break-45.1 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient
3	happen	past		to the plan	vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=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.

The options

Option 1

It got better

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	2 got	nsubj
2	got	get	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	better	good	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	2 got	xcomp

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	get	past	It					good property	vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V S_ING»: agent=Experiencer

Option 2 · ← Mova's choice

It was finished early

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 finished	nsubj:pass
2	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 finished	aux:pass
3	finished	finish	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	root	root
4	early	early	ADV	Degree=Pos	3 finished	advmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	finish	past · passive		It				early property	vn stop-55.4-1-1 «NP V NP.eventuality»: subject=Eventuality

Option 3 · ✓ the right answer

It went wrong

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	2 went	nsubj
2	went	go	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	wrong	wrong	ADJ	Degree=Pos	2 went	xcomp

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	go	past	It					wrong property	vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme

Option 4

They drove south

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	2 drove	nsubj
2	drove	drive	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	south	south	ADV	_	2 drove	advmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	drive	past	They					south property	vn nonvehicle-51.4.2-1 «NP.agent V»: agent=Agent

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/33-failure-and-mistakes/t8/