Test 10 · The Silk Road

Why did sea routes take over from the Silk Road?

Mova's choice: option 4 · The right answer: option 2 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: sea routes · What happens: take over · To what, where: Silk Road

This is test 10 of lesson 28 «The Silk Road» 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	5 take	advmod
2	did	do	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	4 routes	aux
3	sea	sea	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 routes	compound
4	routes	route	NOUN	Number=Plur	5 take	nsubj
5	take	take	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
6	over	over	ADV	_	5 take	advmod
7	from	from	ADP	_	10 Road	case
8	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	10 Road	det
9	Silk	Silk	PROPN	Number=Sing	10 Road	compound
10	Road	Road	PROPN	Number=Sing	5 take	obl
11	?	?	PUNCT	_	5 take	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	take over	present	sea routes			the Silk Road		over property	vn obtain-13.5.2 «NP V NP PP.source»: agent=Agent from road=Source

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 Silk Road was flooded

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	3 Road	det
2	Silk	Silk	PROPN	Number=Sing	3 Road	compound
3	Road	Road	PROPN	Number=Sing	5 flooded	nsubj:pass
4	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	5 flooded	aux:pass
5	flooded	flood	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	root	root

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	flood	past · passive		the Silk Road					vn other_cos-45.4 «NP V NP.patient»: subject=Patient

Option 2 · ✓ the right answer

Ships could carry far more goods more cheaply

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Ships	ship	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 carry	nsubj
2	could	could	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 carry	aux
3	carry	carry	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	far	far	ADV	Degree=Pos	5 more	advmod
5	more	more	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	6 goods	amod
6	goods	goods	NOUN	Number=Ptan	3 carry	obj
7	more	more	ADV	Degree=Cmp	8 cheaply	advmod
8	cheaply	cheaply	ADV	_	3 carry	advmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	carry	could	Ships	more goods				cheaply property	vn carry-11.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent goods=Theme

Option 3

Camels were banned by the Pope in all Christian lands

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Camels	camel	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 banned	nsubj:pass
2	were	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 banned	aux:pass
3	banned	ban	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	root	root
4	by	by	ADP	_	6 Pope	case
5	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	6 Pope	det
6	Pope	Pope	PROPN	Number=Sing	3 banned	obl
7	in	in	ADP	_	10 lands	case
8	all	all	DET	PronType=Tot	10 lands	det
9	Christian	Christian	ADJ	Degree=Pos	10 lands	amod
10	lands	land	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 banned	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	ban	past · passive	the Pope	Camels		all Christian lands			vn forbid-64.4-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Causer subject=Theme

Option 4 · ← Mova's choice

The sea routes became shorter after 1500

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	3 routes	det
2	sea	sea	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 routes	compound
3	routes	route	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 became	nsubj
4	became	become	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
5	shorter	short	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	4 became	xcomp
6	after	after	ADP	_	7 1500	case
7	1500	1500	NUM	NumForm=Digit NumType=Card	4 became	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	become	past	the sea routes				after 1500	short property	vn become-109.1-1-1 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Patient

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/28-the-silk-road/t10/