Test 4 · The Silk Road

Why did cities grow at oases?

Mova's choice: option 3 · The right answer: option 3 · right ✓ · Who acts: cities · What happens: grow · To what, where: oases

This is test 4 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	4 grow	advmod
2	did	do	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	4 grow	aux
3	cities	city	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 grow	nsubj
4	grow	grow	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
5	at	at	ADP	_	6 oases	case
6	oases	oasis	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 grow	obl
7	?	?	PUNCT	_	4 grow	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	grow	past · do-support	cities			oases			vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme at oasis=Location

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

Oases had gold lying on the ground

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Oases	oasis	NOUN	Number=Plur	2 had	nsubj
2	had	have	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	gold	gold	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 had	obj
4	lying	lie	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	3 gold	acl
5	on	on	ADP	_	7 ground	case
6	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	7 ground	det
7	ground	ground	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 lying	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	have	past	Oases	gold					vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent gold=Patient
2	lie	gerund	gold not said here			the ground			vn assuming_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent on ground=Location

Option 2

Oases were cooler than the mountains

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Oases	oasis	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 cooler	nsubj
2	were	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 cooler	cop
3	cooler	cool	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	root	root
4	than	than	ADP	_	6 mountains	case
5	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	6 mountains	det
6	mountains	mountain	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 cooler	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is	past	Oases					than the mountains; cool property	tree rules

Option 3 · ← Mova's choice · ✓ the right answer

Oases had water where caravans could rest and trade

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Oases	oasis	NOUN	Number=Plur	2 had	nsubj
2	had	have	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	water	water	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 had	obj
4	where	where	ADV	PronType=Rel	7 rest	advmod
5	caravans	caravan	NOUN	Number=Plur	7 rest	nsubj
6	could	could	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	7 rest	aux
7	rest	rest	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	3 water	acl:relcl
8	and	and	CCONJ	_	9 trade	cc
9	trade	trade	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 water	conj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	have	past	Oases	water and trade					vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent water=Patient
2	rest	could	caravans						vn spatial_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme

Option 4

Oases were the only places where silkworms could live and spin

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Oases	oasis	NOUN	Number=Plur	5 places	nsubj
2	were	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	5 places	cop
3	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	5 places	det
4	only	only	ADJ	Degree=Pos	5 places	amod
5	places	place	NOUN	Number=Plur	root	root
6	where	where	ADV	PronType=Rel	9 live	advmod
7	silkworms	silkworm	NOUN	Number=Plur	9 live	nsubj
8	could	could	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	9 live	aux
9	live	live	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	5 places	acl:relcl
10	and	and	CCONJ	_	11 spin	cc
11	spin	spin	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	9 live	conj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	roles by
1	is a	past	Oases	the only places	tree rules
2	live	could	silkworms		vn exist-47.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
3	spin	infinitive	silkworms not said here		vn roll-51.3.1 «NP.theme V»: agent=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/t4/