Test 3 · The Silk Road

Why were camels better than horses for crossing deserts?

Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 1 · right ✓ · What happens: be · To what, where: camels

This is test 3 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	root	root
2	were	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 camels	cop
3	camels	camel	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 better	obl:unmarked
4	better	well	ADV	Degree=Cmp	1 Why	advmod
5	than	than	ADP	_	6 horses	case
6	horses	horse	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 better	obl
7	for	for	ADP	_	9 deserts	case
8	crossing	crossing	NOUN	Number=Sing	9 deserts	compound
9	deserts	desert	NOUN	Number=Plur	6 horses	nmod
10	?	?	PUNCT	_	1 Why	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is a	past		camels					tree rules

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 · ← Mova's choice · ✓ the right answer

They go long without water and cope with heat and cold

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	They	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	2 go	nsubj
2	go	go	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	long	long	ADV	Degree=Pos	2 go	advmod
4	without	without	ADP	_	5 water	case
5	water	water	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 go	obl
6	and	and	CCONJ	_	7 cope	cc
7	cope	cope	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	2 go	conj
8	with	with	ADP	_	9 heat	case
9	heat	heat	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 cope	obl
10	and	and	CCONJ	_	11 cold	cc
11	cold	cold	ADJ	Degree=Pos	9 heat	conj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	go	present	They					without water; long property	vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
2	cope	present	They not said here					with heat	vn cope-83-1 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent with heat=Theme

Option 2

Camels are faster than any horse

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Camels	camel	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 faster	nsubj
2	are	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	3 faster	cop
3	faster	fast	ADV	Degree=Cmp	root	root
4	than	than	ADP	_	6 horse	case
5	any	any	DET	PronType=Ind	6 horse	det
6	horse	horse	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 faster	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is	present	Camels					than any horse; fast property	tree rules

Option 3

Camels could swim across rivers

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Camels	camel	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 swim	nsubj
2	could	could	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 swim	aux
3	swim	swim	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	across	across	ADP	_	5 rivers	case
5	rivers	river	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 swim	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	swim	could	Camels			rivers			vn run-51.3.2-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme across river=Trajectory

Option 4

Horses were not allowed in deserts by the rulers who owned the oases

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Horses	horse	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 allowed	nsubj:pass
2	were	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	4 allowed	aux:pass
3	not	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	4 allowed	advmod
4	allowed	allow	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	root	root
5	in	in	ADP	_	6 deserts	case
6	deserts	desert	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 allowed	obl
7	by	by	ADP	_	9 rulers	case
8	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	9 rulers	det
9	rulers	ruler	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 allowed	obl
10	who	who	PRON	PronType=Rel	11 owned	nsubj
11	owned	own	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	9 rulers	acl:relcl
12	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	13 oases	det
13	oases	oasis	NOUN	Number=Plur	11 owned	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	not allow	past · passive		Horses		deserts		by the rulers	vn allow-64.1-1 «NP V NP»: subject=Beneficiary
2	own	past	the rulers	the oases					vn own-100.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Pivot oasis=Theme

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/t3/