Test 7 · ★ · White lies and kind silence

Why can a false «it's perfect» be unkind?

Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 3 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: it · What happens: be · Speech: someone speaks here

This is test 7 · ★ of lesson 196 «White lies and kind silence» of the everyday 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	Why	why	ADV	PronType=Int	11 unkind	advmod
2	can	can	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	11 unkind	aux
3	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	11 unkind	det
4	false	false	ADJ	Degree=Pos	11 unkind	amod
5	«	«	PUNCT	_	8 perfect	punct
6	it	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	8 perfect	nsubj
7	's	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	8 perfect	cop
8	perfect	perfect	ADJ	Degree=Pos	4 false	parataxis
9	»	»	PUNCT	_	8 perfect	punct
10	be	be	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	11 unkind	cop
11	unkind	unkind	ADJ	Degree=Pos	root	root
12	?	?	PUNCT	_	11 unkind	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is in a quote	present	it					perfect property	tree rules
2	is	can						unkind property	tree rules

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

Because nobody really likes to hear good things about their work

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Because	because	SCONJ	_	4 likes	mark
2	nobody	nobody	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Neg	4 likes	nsubj
3	really	really	ADV	_	4 likes	advmod
4	likes	like	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
5	to	to	PART	_	6 hear	mark
6	hear	hear	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	4 likes	xcomp
7	good	good	ADJ	Degree=Pos	8 things	amod
8	things	thing	NOUN	Number=Plur	6 hear	obj
9	about	about	ADP	_	11 work	case
10	their	their	PRON	Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	11 work	nmod:poss
11	work	work	NOUN	Number=Sing	8 things	nmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	other	roles by
1	like	present	nobody			vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP S_INF»: agent=Pivot clause=Theme
2	hear not said to happen	to-infinitive	nobody not said here	good things	about things's work	vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V S»: agent=Experiencer thing=Stimulus
3	work		things = thing			nom work «act intransitive»: poss=agent

Option 2

Because it is always rude to be nice

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Because	because	SCONJ	_	5 rude	mark
2	it	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	5 rude	nsubj
3	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	5 rude	cop
4	always	always	ADV	PronType=Tot	5 rude	advmod
5	rude	rude	ADJ	Degree=Pos	root	root
6	to	to	PART	_	8 nice	mark
7	be	be	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	8 nice	cop
8	nice	nice	ADJ	Degree=Pos	5 rude	advcl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is	present	it					always, rude property	tree rules
2	is	to-infinitive						nice property	tree rules

Option 3 · ✓ the right answer

The person may act on it and be embarrassed later

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	4 act	nsubj
3	may	may	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	4 act	aux
4	act	act	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
5	on	on	ADP	_	6 it	case
6	it	it	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	4 act	obl
7	and	and	CCONJ	_	9 embarrassed	cc
8	be	be	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	9 embarrassed	aux:pass
9	embarrassed	embarrass	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	4 act	conj
10	later	late	ADV	Degree=Cmp	4 act	advmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	act	may	the person			it		late property	vn act-114-1-1 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent on it=Eventuality
2	embarrass	infinitive · passive	the person not said here						vn amuse-31.1 «NP V ADV-Middle»

Option 4

Because praise always makes people lazy

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Because	because	SCONJ	_	4 makes	mark
2	praise	praise	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 makes	nsubj
3	always	always	ADV	PronType=Tot	4 makes	advmod
4	makes	make	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
5	people	people	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 makes	obj
6	lazy	lazy	ADJ	Degree=Pos	4 makes	xcomp

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	make	present	praise	people				always, lazy property	vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset people=Product

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/everyday/196-white-lies-and-kind-silence/t7/