Exam question 2 · Soft words for hard things: rudeness and swearing

Ascertain the expression for which the interjection "heck" constitutes a softened substitute.

Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 4 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: you, interjection · What happens: ascertain, constitute, soften · To what, where: expression, softened substitute

This is exam question 2 of lesson 38 «Soft words for hard things: rudeness and swearing» 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	3 expression	det
3	expression	expression	NOUN	Number=Sing	1 Ascertain	obj
4	for	for	ADP	_	5 which	case
5	which	which	PRON	PronType=Rel	11 constitutes	obl
6	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	7 interjection	det
7	interjection	interjection	NOUN	Number=Sing	11 constitutes	nsubj
8	"	"	PUNCT	_	9 heck	punct
9	heck	heck	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 interjection	appos
10	"	"	PUNCT	_	9 heck	punct
11	constitutes	constitute	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	3 expression	acl:relcl
12	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	14 substitute	det
13	softened	soften	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	14 substitute	amod
14	substitute	substitute	NOUN	Number=Sing	11 constitutes	obj
15	.	.	PUNCT	_	1 Ascertain	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	other	roles by
1	ascertain	imperative	you not said here	the expression		vn discover-84 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent expression=Topic
2	constitute	present	the interjection	a softened substitute	for the expression	vn comprise-107.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme substitute=Pivot
3	soften	participle				vn other_cos-45.4 «NP.patient V»: agent=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

Help

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Help	help	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root

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

Option 2

Neck

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Neck	neck	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root

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

Option 3

Hack

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Hack	hack	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root

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

Option 4 · ✓ the right answer

Hell

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Hell	hell	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root

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/38-drat-and-the-f-word/e2/