Test 8 · Languages and peoples on the map

If a village's children all start speaking a big national language, what may happen to the village's own language?

Mova's choice: option 4 · The right answer: option 3 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: children, big national language · What happens: start, speak, happen · To what, where: big national language · Speech: someone speaks here

This is test 8 of lesson 25 «Languages and peoples on the map» 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	If	if	SCONJ	_	7 start	mark
2	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	3 village	det
3	village	village	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 children	nmod:poss
4	's	's	PART	_	3 village	case
5	children	child	NOUN	Number=Plur	7 start	nsubj
6	all	all	DET	PronType=Tot	7 start	nsubj
7	start	start	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
8	speaking	speak	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	7 start	xcomp
9	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	12 language	det
10	big	big	ADJ	Degree=Pos	12 language	amod
11	national	national	ADJ	Degree=Pos	12 language	amod
12	language	language	NOUN	Number=Sing	8 speaking	obj
13	,	,	PUNCT	_	16 happen	punct
14	what	what	PRON	PronType=Int	16 happen	nsubj
15	may	may	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	16 happen	aux
16	happen	happen	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	12 language	acl:relcl
17	to	to	ADP	_	22 language	case
18	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	19 village	det
19	village	village	NOUN	Number=Sing	22 language	nmod:poss
20	's	's	PART	_	19 village	case
21	own	own	ADJ	Degree=Pos	22 language	amod
22	language	language	NOUN	Number=Sing	16 happen	obl
23	?	?	PUNCT	_	7 start	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	other	roles by
1	start	present	a village's children			vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S_ING»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality
2	speak speech: other	gerund	a village's children not said here	a big national language		tree rules
3	happen	may	a big national language		to the village's own language	vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=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

Nothing, languages never disappear

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Nothing	nothing	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Neg	root	root
2	,	,	PUNCT	_	1 Nothing	punct
3	languages	language	NOUN	Number=Plur	5 disappear	nsubj
4	never	never	ADV	PronType=Neg	5 disappear	advmod
5	disappear	disappear	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	1 Nothing	acl:relcl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	not disappear	present	languages						vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme

Option 2

It will become the world's most spoken language

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	3 become	nsubj
2	will	will	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 become	aux
3	become	become	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	5 world	det
5	world	world	NOUN	Number=Sing	9 language	nmod:poss
6	's	's	PART	_	5 world	case
7	most	most	ADV	Degree=Sup	8 spoken	advmod
8	spoken	speak	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	9 language	amod
9	language	language	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 become	xcomp

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	become	future	It	the world's spoken language					vn become-109.1-1-1 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Patient
2	speak speech: other	participle							vn talk-37.5 «NP V»: agent=Agent

Option 3 · ✓ the right answer

It may become endangered and die out

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	3 become	nsubj
2	may	may	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 become	aux
3	become	become	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	endangered	endangered	ADJ	Degree=Pos	3 become	xcomp
5	and	and	CCONJ	_	6 die	cc
6	die	die	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	3 become	conj
7	out	out	ADP	_	6 die	compound:prt

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	become	may	It					endangered property	vn become-109.1-1-1 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Patient
2	die out	infinitive							vn calibratable_cos-45.6.1 «NP.attribute V»: agent=Attribute

Option 4 · ← Mova's choice

It will turn into Latin

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	3 turn	nsubj
2	will	will	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 turn	aux
3	turn	turn	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	into	into	ADP	_	5 Latin	case
5	Latin	Latin	PROPN	Number=Sing	3 turn	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	turn	future	It					into Latin result	vn roll-51.3.1 «NP V PP.result»: agent=Theme into latin=Result

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/geography/25-languages-and-peoples-on-the-map/t8/