Test 1 · ★ · The spice trade and the Indian Ocean

Why did pepper cost so much more in Europe than in India?

Mova's choice: option 4 · The right answer: option 1 · wrong ✗ · What happens: do · To what, where: pepper cost, Europe

This is test 1 · ★ of lesson 29 «The spice trade and the Indian Ocean» 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	2 did	advmod
2	did	do	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	pepper	pepper	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 cost	compound
4	cost	cost	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 did	obj
5	so	so	ADV	_	6 much	advmod
6	much	much	ADV	_	7 more	advmod
7	more	more	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	2 did	obj
8	in	in	ADP	_	9 Europe	case
9	Europe	Europe	PROPN	Number=Sing	2 did	obl
10	than	than	ADP	_	12 India	case
11	in	in	ADP	_	12 India	case
12	India	India	PROPN	Number=Sing	2 did	obl
13	?	?	PUNCT	_	2 did	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	do	past		pepper cost		Europe		than India	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 · ✓ the right answer

Each trader along the way added a profit and a cost

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Each	each	DET	PronType=Tot	2 trader	det
2	trader	trader	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 added	nsubj
3	along	along	ADP	_	5 way	case
4	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	5 way	det
5	way	way	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 trader	nmod
6	added	add	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
7	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	8 profit	det
8	profit	profit	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 added	obj
9	and	and	CCONJ	_	11 cost	cc
10	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	11 cost	det
11	cost	cost	NOUN	Number=Sing	8 profit	conj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	add speech: assert	past	each trader along the way	a profit and a cost					vn mix-22.1-2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent profit=Patient

Option 2

Indian pepper was mixed with gold dust

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Indian	Indian	ADJ	Degree=Pos	2 pepper	amod
2	pepper	pepper	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 mixed	nsubj:pass
3	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	4 mixed	aux:pass
4	mixed	mix	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	root	root
5	with	with	ADP	_	7 dust	case
6	gold	gold	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 dust	compound
7	dust	dust	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 mixed	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	mix	past · passive		Indian pepper				with gold dust	vn mix-22.1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.co-patient»: subject=Patient with dust=Co-Patient

Option 3

European pepper was a different and much rarer plant

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	European	European	ADJ	Degree=Pos	2 pepper	amod
2	pepper	pepper	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 different	nsubj
3	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	5 different	cop
4	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	5 different	det
5	different	different	ADJ	Degree=Pos	root	root
6	and	and	CCONJ	_	9 plant	cc
7	much	much	ADV	_	8 rarer	advmod
8	rarer	rare	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	9 plant	amod
9	plant	plant	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 different	conj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is	past	European pepper					different property	tree rules

Option 4 · ← Mova's choice

It was cheaper in Europe, not dearer

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 cheaper	nsubj
2	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 cheaper	cop
3	cheaper	cheap	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	root	root
4	in	in	ADP	_	5 Europe	case
5	Europe	Europe	PROPN	Number=Sing	3 cheaper	obl
6	,	,	PUNCT	_	8 dearer	punct
7	not	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	8 dearer	advmod
8	dearer	dear	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	3 cheaper	conj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is	past	It			Europe		cheap property	tree rules
2	not be								tree rules

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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