Test 5 · Food and farming around the world

Why do farmers cut terraces into steep slopes?

Mova's choice: option 2 · The right answer: option 2 · right ✓ · Who acts: farmers · What happens: cut · To what, where: terraces, steep slopes

This is test 5 of lesson 26 «Food and farming around the world» 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	4 cut	advmod
2	do	do	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	4 cut	aux
3	farmers	farmer	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 cut	nsubj
4	cut	cut	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
5	terraces	terrace	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 cut	obj
6	into	into	ADP	_	8 slopes	case
7	steep	steep	ADJ	Degree=Pos	8 slopes	amod
8	slopes	slope	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 cut	obl
9	?	?	PUNCT	_	4 cut	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	cut	present · do-support	farmers	terraces		steep slopes			vn build-26.1-1 «NP V NP.material PP.product»: agent=Agent terrace=Material into slope=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

Terraces make the hill grow taller every year

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Terraces	terrace	NOUN	Number=Plur	2 make	nsubj
2	make	make	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	4 hill	det
4	hill	hill	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 make	obj
5	grow	grow	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	6 taller	cop
6	taller	tall	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	2 make	xcomp
7	every	every	DET	PronType=Tot	8 year	det
8	year	year	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 make	obl:unmarked

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	make	present	Terraces	the hill			year		vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset hill=Product
2	is	present	the hill not said here					tall property	tree rules

Option 2 · ← Mova's choice · ✓ the right answer

Flat steps hold water and stop soil washing away

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Flat	flat	ADJ	Degree=Pos	2 steps	amod
2	steps	step	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 hold	nsubj
3	hold	hold	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
4	water	water	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 hold	obj
5	and	and	CCONJ	_	6 stop	cc
6	stop	stop	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	3 hold	conj
7	soil	soil	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 stop	obj
8	washing	wash	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	6 stop	xcomp
9	away	away	ADV	_	8 washing	advmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	other	roles by
1	hold	present	Flat steps	water		vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent water=Theme
2	stop	present	Flat steps not said here	soil		tree rules
3	wash away	gerund	Flat steps not said here		away property	vn floss-41.2.1 «NP V»: agent=Agent

Option 3

Terraces keep the cold mountain wind off the farmers

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Terraces	terrace	NOUN	Number=Plur	2 keep	nsubj
2	keep	keep	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	6 wind	det
4	cold	cold	ADJ	Degree=Pos	6 wind	amod
5	mountain	mountain	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 wind	compound
6	wind	wind	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 keep	obj
7	off	off	ADP	_	9 farmers	case
8	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	9 farmers	det
9	farmers	farmer	NOUN	Number=Plur	2 keep	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	keep	present	Terraces	the cold mountain wind				off the farmers	vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent wind=Theme

Option 4

Steps are easier to paint

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Steps	step	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 easier	nsubj
2	are	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	3 easier	cop
3	easier	easy	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	root	root
4	to	to	PART	_	5 paint	mark
5	paint	paint	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	3 easier	xcomp

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is	present	Steps					easy property	tree rules
2	paint	to-infinitive	Steps not said here						vn image_impression-25.1 «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.

This page in Markdown → https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/questions/geography/26-food-and-farming-around-the-world/t5/