Test 7 · Soft words for hard things: the toilet and bodily functions
In a Mexico travel guide: "Drink bottled water to avoid Montezuma's revenge." What are tourists avoiding?
Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 3 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: Montezuma, tourists · What happens: drink, bottle, avoid, revenge · To what, where: bottled water, revenge
This is test 7 of lesson 7 «Soft words for hard things: the toilet and bodily functions» 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
Sentence 1: In a Mexico travel guide: "Drink bottled water to avoid Montezuma's revenge."
The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)
| # | word | lemma | UPOS | features | head | relation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | In | in | ADP | _ | 5 guide | case |
| 2 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 5 guide | det |
| 3 | Mexico | Mexico | PROPN | Number=Sing | 5 guide | compound |
| 4 | travel | travel | NOUN | Number=Sing | 5 guide | compound |
| 5 | guide | guide | NOUN | Number=Sing | root | root |
| 6 | : | : | PUNCT | _ | 8 Drink | punct |
| 7 | " | " | PUNCT | _ | 8 Drink | punct |
| 8 | Drink | drink | VERB | Mood=Imp VerbForm=Fin | 5 guide | parataxis |
| 9 | bottled | bottle | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | 10 water | amod |
| 10 | water | water | NOUN | Number=Sing | 8 Drink | obj |
| 11 | to | to | PART | _ | 12 avoid | mark |
| 12 | avoid | avoid | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 8 Drink | advcl |
| 13 | Montezuma | Montezuma | PROPN | Number=Sing | 15 revenge | nmod:poss |
| 14 | 's | 's | PART | _ | 13 Montezuma | case |
| 15 | revenge | revenge | NOUN | Number=Sing | 12 avoid | obj |
| 16 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 5 guide | punct |
| 17 | " | " | PUNCT | _ | 5 guide | punct |
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | drink in a quote | infinitive | bottled water | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent water=Patient | |||||
| 2 | bottle in a quote | participle | vn pocket-9.10 «NP V NP.theme»: agent=Agent | ||||||
| 3 | avoid in a quote | to-infinitive | Montezuma's revenge | vn avoid-52 «NP V NP.location»: agent=Agent revenge=Location | |||||
| 4 | revenge in a quote | Montezuma | nom revenge «act transitive»: poss=agent |
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.
Sentence 2: What are tourists avoiding?
The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)
| # | word | lemma | UPOS | features | head | relation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | What | what | PRON | PronType=Int | 4 avoiding | obj |
| 2 | are | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 4 avoiding | aux |
| 3 | tourists | tourist | NOUN | Number=Plur | 4 avoiding | nsubj |
| 4 | avoiding | avoid | VERB | Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part | root | root |
| 5 | ? | ? | PUNCT | _ | 4 avoiding | punct |
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | avoid | present · progressive | tourists | vn avoid-52 «NP V NP.location»: agent=Agent what=Location |
The options
Option 1 · ← Mova's choice
Sunstroke
The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)
| # | word | lemma | UPOS | features | head | relation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sunstroke | sunstroke | NOUN | Number=Sing | root | root |
The frames reader finds no event or fact in this sentence.
Option 2
Being robbed
The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)
| # | word | lemma | UPOS | features | head | relation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Being | be | AUX | Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part | 2 robbed | aux:pass |
| 2 | robbed | rob | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | root | root |
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | rob | gerund · passive | vn cheat-10.6.1-1-1 «NP V NP» |
Option 3 · ✓ the right answer
Getting diarrhoea
The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)
| # | word | lemma | UPOS | features | head | relation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Getting | get | VERB | VerbForm=Ger | root | root |
| 2 | diarrhoea | diarrhoea | NOUN | Number=Sing | 1 Getting | obj |
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | get | gerund | diarrhoea | vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer diarrhoea=Stimulus |
Option 4
An angry king
The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)
| # | word | lemma | UPOS | features | head | relation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | An | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 3 king | det |
| 2 | angry | angry | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 3 king | amod |
| 3 | king | king | 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/7-wind-sick-and-runs/t7/