Test 5 · ★ · The spice trade and the Indian Ocean

Why were tiny islands like Banda so important?

Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 4 · wrong ✗ · What happens: be · To what, where: tiny islands

This is test 5 · ★ 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	4 islands	advmod
2	were	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	4 islands	cop
3	tiny	tiny	ADJ	Degree=Pos	4 islands	amod
4	islands	island	NOUN	Number=Plur	root	root
5	like	like	ADP	_	6 Banda	case
6	Banda	Banda	PROPN	Number=Sing	4 islands	nmod
7	so	so	ADV	_	8 important	advmod
8	important	important	ADJ	Degree=Pos	4 islands	amod
9	?	?	PUNCT	_	4 islands	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is a	past		tiny islands				like Banda	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

They held the biggest gold mines in all of Asia

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 held	nsubj
2	held	hold	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	6 mines	det
4	biggest	big	ADJ	Degree=Sup	6 mines	amod
5	gold	gold	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 mines	compound
6	mines	mine	NOUN	Number=Plur	2 held	obj
7	in	in	ADP	_	8 all	case
8	all	all	DET	PronType=Tot	6 mines	nmod
9	of	of	ADP	_	10 Asia	case
10	Asia	Asia	PROPN	Number=Sing	8 all	nmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	hold	past	They	the biggest gold mines		all			vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP PP.location»: agent=Agent mine=Theme in all=Location

Option 2

They were the capitals of great empires

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	4 capitals	nsubj
2	were	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	4 capitals	cop
3	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	4 capitals	det
4	capitals	capital	NOUN	Number=Plur	root	root
5	of	of	ADP	_	7 empires	case
6	great	great	ADJ	Degree=Pos	7 empires	amod
7	empires	empire	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 capitals	nmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is a	past	They	the capitals				of great empires	tree rules

Option 3

They had the best harbours for whaling

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 had	nsubj
2	had	have	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	5 harbours	det
4	best	good	ADJ	Degree=Sup	5 harbours	amod
5	harbours	harbour	NOUN	Number=Plur	2 had	obj
6	for	for	ADP	_	7 whaling	case
7	whaling	whaling	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 harbours	nmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	have	past	They	the best harbours				for whaling	vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent harbour=Patient

Option 4 · ✓ the right answer

They were almost the only places nutmeg grew

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	6 places	nsubj
2	were	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	6 places	cop
3	almost	almost	ADV	_	6 places	advmod
4	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	6 places	det
5	only	only	ADJ	Degree=Pos	6 places	amod
6	places	place	NOUN	Number=Plur	root	root
7	nutmeg	nutmeg	NOUN	Number=Sing	8 grew	nsubj
8	grew	grow	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	6 places	acl:relcl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is a	past	They	the only places				almost property	tree rules
2	grow	past	nutmeg	the only places not said here					vn appear-48.1.1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location place=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/29-the-spice-trade-and-the-indian-ocean/t5/