Exam question 3 · Family parties, aunts and uncles, and the row nobody expla…

Ascertain the meaning conveyed by an Australian speaker who responds «nah yeah» to a question.

Mova's choice: option 3 · The right answer: option 4 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: you, Australian speaker · What happens: ascertain, convey, respond · To what, where: meaning

This is exam question 3 of lesson 511 «Family parties, aunts and uncles, and the row nobody explains» of the everyday 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 meaning	det
3	meaning	meaning	NOUN	Number=Sing	1 Ascertain	obj
4	conveyed	convey	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	3 meaning	acl
5	by	by	ADP	_	8 speaker	case
6	an	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	8 speaker	det
7	Australian	Australian	ADJ	Degree=Pos	8 speaker	amod
8	speaker	speaker	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 conveyed	obl
9	who	who	PRON	PronType=Rel	10 responds	nsubj
10	responds	respond	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	8 speaker	acl:relcl
11	«	«	PUNCT	_	13 yeah	punct
12	nah	nah	INTJ	_	13 yeah	discourse
13	yeah	yeah	INTJ	_	10 responds	discourse
14	»	»	PUNCT	_	13 yeah	punct
15	to	to	ADP	_	17 question	case
16	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	17 question	det
17	question	question	NOUN	Number=Sing	10 responds	obl
18	.	.	PUNCT	_	1 Ascertain	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	other	roles by
1	ascertain	imperative	you not said here	the meaning		vn discover-84 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent meaning=Topic
2	convey	participle		the meaning not said here	by a Australian speaker	vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent
3	respond speech: other	present	a Australian speaker		to a question	vn respond-113 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent to question=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

Uncertainty as to the correct answer

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Uncertainty	uncertainty	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root
2	as	as	ADP	ExtPos=ADP	6 answer	case
3	to	to	ADP	_	2 as	fixed
4	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	6 answer	det
5	correct	correct	ADJ	Degree=Pos	6 answer	amod
6	answer	answer	NOUN	Number=Sing	1 Uncertainty	nmod

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

Option 2

Disagreement expressed with great emphasis

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Disagreement	disagreement	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root
2	expressed	express	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	1 Disagreement	acl
3	with	with	ADP	_	5 emphasis	case
4	great	great	ADJ	Degree=Pos	5 emphasis	amod
5	emphasis	emphasis	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 expressed	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	express	participle		Disagreement not said here				with great emphasis	vn reflexive_appearance-48.1.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent

Option 3 · ← Mova's choice

A refusal to answer the question put

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	A	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	2 refusal	det
2	refusal	refusal	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root
3	to	to	PART	_	4 answer	mark
4	answer	answer	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	2 refusal	acl
5	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	6 question	det
6	question	question	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 answer	obj
7	put	put	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	4 answer	xcomp

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	answer speech: assert	to-infinitive		the question					tree rules
2	put	participle							vn invest-13.5.4-1 «NP V PP»: agent=Agent

Option 4 · ✓ the right answer

Agreement

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Agreement	agreement	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/everyday/511-family-parties-aunts-and-uncles-and-the-row-nobody-explains/e3/