Test 9 · The Silk Road

What would happen to Samarkand if caravans stopped coming?

Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 4 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: caravans · What happens: happen, stop, come · To what, where: Samarkand

This is test 9 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	What	what	PRON	PronType=Int	3 happen	nsubj
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 happen	aux
3	happen	happen	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	to	to	ADP	_	5 Samarkand	case
5	Samarkand	Samarkand	PROPN	Number=Sing	3 happen	obl
6	if	if	SCONJ	_	8 stopped	mark
7	caravans	caravan	NOUN	Number=Plur	8 stopped	nsubj
8	stopped	stop	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 happen	advcl
9	coming	come	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	8 stopped	xcomp
10	?	?	PUNCT	_	3 happen	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	to whom	roles by
1	happen	would		Samarkand	vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
2	stop a condition, not said to happen	past	caravans		vn stop-55.4-1-1 «NP V S_ING»: agent=Affector clause=Eventuality
3	come	gerund	caravans not said here		vn escape-51.1-1 «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 · ← Mova's choice

It would grow much richer

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 grow	nsubj
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 grow	aux
3	grow	grow	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	much	much	ADV	_	5 richer	advmod
5	richer	rich	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	3 grow	xcomp

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	grow	would	It					rich property	vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme

Option 2

It would turn into a sea port

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	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 turn	aux
3	turn	turn	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	into	into	ADP	_	7 port	case
5	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	7 port	det
6	sea	sea	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 port	compound
7	port	port	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 turn	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	turn	would	It			a sea port			vn roll-51.3.1 «NP V PP.trajectory»: agent=Theme into port=Trajectory

Option 3

Nothing at all, because it never depended on trade

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Nothing	nothing	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Neg	8 depended	nsubj
2	at	at	ADP	_	3 all	case
3	all	all	DET	PronType=Tot	1 Nothing	nmod
4	,	,	PUNCT	_	8 depended	punct
5	because	because	SCONJ	_	8 depended	mark
6	it	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	8 depended	nsubj
7	never	never	ADV	PronType=Neg	8 depended	advmod
8	depended	depend	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
9	on	on	ADP	_	10 trade	case
10	trade	trade	NOUN	Number=Sing	8 depended	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	not depend	past	Nothing					on trade	vn rely-70 «NP V PP.theme S_ING»: agent=Agent on trade=Theme

Option 4 · ✓ the right answer

It would lose much of its trade and wealth

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 lose	nsubj
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 lose	aux
3	lose	lose	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	much	much	ADJ	Degree=Pos	3 lose	obj
5	of	of	ADP	_	7 trade	case
6	its	its	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	7 trade	nmod:poss
7	trade	trade	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 much	nmod
8	and	and	CCONJ	_	9 wealth	cc
9	wealth	wealth	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 trade	conj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	lose	would	It	much of its trade and wealth					vn succeed-74-3-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent much=Eventuality
2	trade		its = it						nom trade «act transitive»: poss=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.

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