Test 8 · ★★ · Spiders, snakes and wild neighbours

A girl says snakes are slimy, so she does not want to touch the class corn snake. What is true?

Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 2 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: girl, snakes · What happens: say, be, not want, touch · To what, where: corn snake · Speech: someone speaks here

This is test 8 · ★★ of lesson 69 «Spiders, snakes and wild neighbours» 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

Sentence 1: A girl says snakes are slimy, so she does not want to touch the class corn snake.

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	A	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	2 girl	det
2	girl	girl	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 says	nsubj
3	says	say	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
4	snakes	snake	NOUN	Number=Plur	6 slimy	nsubj
5	are	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	6 slimy	cop
6	slimy	slimy	ADJ	Degree=Pos	3 says	ccomp
7	,	,	PUNCT	_	12 want	punct
8	so	so	ADV	_	12 want	advmod
9	she	she	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	12 want	nsubj
10	does	do	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	12 want	aux
11	not	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	12 want	advmod
12	want	want	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	3 says	ccomp
13	to	to	PART	_	14 touch	mark
14	touch	touch	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	12 want	xcomp
15	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	18 snake	det
16	class	class	NOUN	Number=Sing	17 corn	compound
17	corn	corn	NOUN	Number=Sing	18 snake	compound
18	snake	snake	NOUN	Number=Sing	14 touch	obj
19	.	.	PUNCT	_	3 says	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	other	roles by
1	say speech: assert	present	a girl			vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic
2	is	present	snakes		slimy property	tree rules
3	not want	present · do-support	girl			vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP S_INF»: agent=Pivot clause=Theme
4	touch not said to happen	to-infinitive	girl not said here	the corn snake		vn contiguous_location-47.8-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme snake=Co-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.

Sentence 2: What is true?

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	What	what	PRON	PronType=Int	3 true	nsubj
2	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	3 true	cop
3	true	true	ADJ	Degree=Pos	root	root
4	?	?	PUNCT	_	3 true	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is	present						true property	tree rules

The options

Option 1 · ← Mova's choice

Snakes are wet only in winter

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Snakes	snake	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 wet	nsubj
2	are	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	3 wet	cop
3	wet	wet	ADJ	Degree=Pos	root	root
4	only	only	ADV	_	6 winter	advmod
5	in	in	ADP	_	6 winter	case
6	winter	winter	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 wet	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is	present	Snakes				winter	wet property	tree rules

Option 2 · ✓ the right answer

Snakes have dry, smooth skin that looks shiny because of scales

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Snakes	snake	NOUN	Number=Plur	2 have	nsubj
2	have	have	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	dry	dry	ADJ	Degree=Pos	6 skin	amod
4	,	,	PUNCT	_	3 dry	punct
5	smooth	smooth	ADJ	Degree=Pos	6 skin	amod
6	skin	skin	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 have	obj
7	that	that	PRON	PronType=Rel	8 looks	nsubj
8	looks	look	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	6 skin	acl:relcl
9	shiny	shiny	ADJ	Degree=Pos	8 looks	xcomp
10	because	because	ADP	ExtPos=ADP	12 scales	case
11	of	of	ADP	_	10 because	fixed
12	scales	scale	NOUN	Number=Plur	8 looks	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	have	present	Snakes	dry smooth skin					vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent skin=Patient
2	look	present	dry smooth skin					because scales; shiny property	vn stimulus_subject-30.4 «NP V ADJ»: agent=Stimulus

Option 3

Snakes are covered in a thick slime that helps them to swim fast

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Snakes	snake	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 covered	nsubj:pass
2	are	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	3 covered	aux:pass
3	covered	cover	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	root	root
4	in	in	ADP	_	7 slime	case
5	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	7 slime	det
6	thick	thick	ADJ	Degree=Pos	7 slime	amod
7	slime	slime	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 covered	obl
8	that	that	PRON	PronType=Rel	9 helps	nsubj
9	helps	help	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	7 slime	acl:relcl
10	them	they	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	9 helps	obj
11	to	to	PART	_	12 swim	mark
12	swim	swim	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	9 helps	xcomp
13	fast	fast	ADV	Degree=Pos	12 swim	advmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	other	roles by
1	cover	present · passive		Snakes	in a thick slime	vn fill-9.8-1 «NP V NP PP.theme»: subject=Destination in slime=Theme
2	help	present	a thick slime	Snakes = snake		vn help-72.1-1-1 «NP V NP S_INF»: agent=Agent they=Beneficiary clause=Theme
3	swim	to-infinitive	Snakes = snake not said here		fast property	vn run-51.3.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme

Option 4

Snakes are sticky like frogs

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Snakes	snake	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 sticky	nsubj
2	are	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	3 sticky	cop
3	sticky	sticky	ADJ	Degree=Pos	root	root
4	like	like	ADP	_	5 frogs	case
5	frogs	frog	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 sticky	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is	present	Snakes					like frogs; sticky property	tree rules

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/69-spiders-snakes-and-wild-neighbours/t8/