Exam question 1 · Soft words for hard things: failure and mistakes and stupi…

Whereas a technical support department attributes a malfunction to "user error", identify the party held responsible thereby.

Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 4 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: technical support department, you, party · What happens: attribute, identify, hold · To what, where: malfunction

This is exam question 1 of lesson 35 «Soft words for hard things: failure and mistakes and stupidity and madness» 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	Whereas	whereas	SCONJ	_	6 attributes	mark
2	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	5 department	det
3	technical	technical	ADJ	Degree=Pos	5 department	amod
4	support	support	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 department	compound
5	department	department	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 attributes	nsubj
6	attributes	attribute	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	15 identify	advcl
7	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	8 malfunction	det
8	malfunction	malfunction	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 attributes	obj
9	to	to	PART	_	12 error	mark
10	"	"	PUNCT	_	12 error	punct
11	user	user	NOUN	Number=Sing	12 error	compound
12	error	error	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 attributes	obl
13	"	"	PUNCT	_	12 error	punct
14	,	,	PUNCT	_	6 attributes	punct
15	identify	identify	VERB	Mood=Imp VerbForm=Fin	root	root
16	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	17 party	det
17	party	party	NOUN	Number=Sing	18 held	nsubj
18	held	hold	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	15 identify	ccomp
19	responsible	responsible	ADJ	Degree=Pos	18 held	xcomp
20	thereby	thereby	ADV	_	18 held	advmod
21	.	.	PUNCT	_	15 identify	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	other	roles by
1	attribute	present	a technical support department	a malfunction	user error obl	tree rules
2	identify	imperative	you not said here			vn characterize-29.2-1-1 «NP V S_ING»: agent=Agent clause=Theme
3	hold	past	the party		responsible, thereby property	vn exist-47.1 «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 · ← Mova's choice

The technical support department itself

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	4 department	det
2	technical	technical	ADJ	Degree=Pos	4 department	amod
3	support	support	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 department	compound
4	department	department	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root
5	itself	itself	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Emp Reflex=Yes	4 department	nmod:unmarked

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

Option 2

The manufacturer of the equipment

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	2 manufacturer	det
2	manufacturer	manufacturer	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root
3	of	of	ADP	_	5 equipment	case
4	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	5 equipment	det
5	equipment	equipment	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 manufacturer	nmod

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

Option 3

No party whatsoever

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	No	no	DET	PronType=Neg	2 party	det
2	party	party	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root
3	whatsoever	whatsoever	ADV	_	2 party	advmod

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

Option 4 · ✓ the right answer

The person operating the equipment

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	2 person	det
2	person	person	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root
3	operating	operate	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	2 person	acl
4	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	5 equipment	det
5	equipment	equipment	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 operating	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	operate	gerund	the person not said here	the equipment					vn function-105.2.1-1 «NP V NP PP»: agent=Theme equipment=Attribute

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/35-mistakes-and-stupidity/e1/