Test 9 · ★★★ · Canals: Suez, Panama and the shortcuts

Why did the Suez Canal make Egypt so important to Britain?

Mova's choice: option 2 · The right answer: option 3 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: Suez Canal · What happens: make · To what, where: Egypt

This is test 9 · ★★★ of lesson 20 «Canals: Suez, Panama and the shortcuts» of the geography 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	6 make	advmod
2	did	do	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	6 make	aux
3	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	5 Canal	det
4	Suez	Suez	PROPN	Number=Sing	5 Canal	compound
5	Canal	Canal	PROPN	Number=Sing	6 make	nsubj
6	make	make	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
7	Egypt	Egypt	PROPN	Number=Sing	6 make	obj
8	so	so	ADV	_	9 important	advmod
9	important	important	ADJ	Degree=Pos	6 make	xcomp
10	to	to	ADP	_	11 Britain	case
11	Britain	Britain	PROPN	Number=Sing	9 important	obl
12	?	?	PUNCT	_	6 make	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	make	past · do-support	the Suez Canal	Egypt				important property	vn build-26.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent egypt=Product

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

The canal was the only way to reach Australia

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	2 canal	det
2	canal	canal	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 way	nsubj
3	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	6 way	cop
4	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	6 way	det
5	only	only	ADJ	Degree=Pos	6 way	amod
6	way	way	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root
7	to	to	PART	_	8 reach	mark
8	reach	reach	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	6 way	acl
9	Australia	Australia	PROPN	Number=Sing	8 reach	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is a	past	the canal	the only way					tree rules
2	reach	to-infinitive		Australia					vn body_motion-49.2-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: agent=Agent australia=Theme

Option 2 · ← Mova's choice

Egypt sold Britain the cotton for all its mills, and only the canal could carry it

The tree, 16 words

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Egypt	Egypt	PROPN	Number=Sing	2 sold	nsubj
2	sold	sell	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	Britain	Britain	PROPN	Number=Sing	2 sold	obj
4	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	5 cotton	det
5	cotton	cotton	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 sold	obj
6	for	for	ADP	_	9 mills	case
7	all	all	DET	PronType=Tot	9 mills	det:predet
8	its	its	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	9 mills	nmod:poss
9	mills	mill	NOUN	Number=Plur	2 sold	obl
10	,	,	PUNCT	_	16 carry	punct
11	and	and	CCONJ	_	16 carry	cc
12	only	only	ADV	_	14 canal	advmod
13	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	14 canal	det
14	canal	canal	NOUN	Number=Sing	16 carry	nsubj
15	could	could	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	16 carry	aux
16	carry	carry	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	2 sold	advcl
17	it	it	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	16 carry	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	sell	past	Egypt	the cotton	Britain			for cotton's mills	vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP NP PP.asset»: agent=Agent britain=Recipient cotton=Theme for mill=Asset
2	carry	could	the canal	cotton					vn carry-11.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Theme

Option 3 · ✓ the right answer

It was the shortcut on the sea route to India

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	It	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	4 shortcut	nsubj
2	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	4 shortcut	cop
3	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	4 shortcut	det
4	shortcut	shortcut	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root
5	on	on	ADP	_	8 route	case
6	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	8 route	det
7	sea	sea	NOUN	Number=Sing	8 route	compound
8	route	route	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 shortcut	nmod
9	to	to	ADP	_	10 India	case
10	India	India	PROPN	Number=Sing	8 route	nmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is a	past	It	the shortcut		the sea route to India			tree rules

Option 4

Britain needed the Nile for drinking water

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Britain	Britain	PROPN	Number=Sing	2 needed	nsubj
2	needed	need	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	4 Nile	det
4	Nile	Nile	PROPN	Number=Sing	2 needed	obj
5	for	for	ADP	_	7 water	case
6	drinking	drink	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	7 water	amod
7	water	water	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 needed	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	need	past	Britain	the Nile				for drinking water	vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: agent=Pivot nile=Theme
2	drink	gerund							vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent

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.

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