Test 9 · ★ · The spice trade and the Indian Ocean

What would have happened to Venice's spice trade after ships sailed around Africa straight to India?

Mova's choice: option 2 · The right answer: option 2 · right ✓ · Who acts: ships, Venice · What happens: happen, sail, trade · To what, where: India, Africa

This is test 9 · ★ 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	What	what	PRON	PronType=Int	4 happened	nsubj
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	4 happened	aux
3	have	have	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	4 happened	aux
4	happened	happen	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part	root	root
5	to	to	ADP	_	9 trade	case
6	Venice	Venice	PROPN	Number=Sing	9 trade	nmod:poss
7	's	's	PART	_	6 Venice	case
8	spice	spice	NOUN	Number=Sing	9 trade	compound
9	trade	trade	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 happened	obl
10	after	after	SCONJ	_	12 sailed	mark
11	ships	ship	NOUN	Number=Plur	12 sailed	nsubj
12	sailed	sail	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	4 happened	advcl
13	around	around	ADP	_	14 Africa	case
14	Africa	Africa	PROPN	Number=Sing	12 sailed	obl
15	straight	straight	ADV	_	17 India	advmod
16	to	to	ADP	_	17 India	case
17	India	India	PROPN	Number=Sing	12 sailed	obl
18	?	?	PUNCT	_	4 happened	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	to whom	where	other	roles by
1	happen	would · perfect				to Venice's spice trade	vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
2	sail	past	ships	India	Africa		vn nonvehicle-51.4.2-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent around africa=Trajectory
3	trade		Venice				nom trade «act transitive»: poss=agent

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

Nothing, as Venice never traded spices at all

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Nothing	nothing	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Neg	6 traded	nsubj
2	,	,	PUNCT	_	1 Nothing	punct
3	as	as	ADP	_	4 Venice	case
4	Venice	Venice	PROPN	Number=Sing	6 traded	obl
5	never	never	ADV	PronType=Neg	6 traded	advmod
6	traded	trade	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
7	spices	spice	NOUN	Number=Plur	6 traded	obj
8	at	at	ADP	_	9 all	case
9	all	all	DET	PronType=Tot	6 traded	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	not trade	past	Nothing	spices		all		as Venice	vn exchange-13.6.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent spice=Theme

Option 2 · ← Mova's choice · ✓ the right answer

It faced strong new competition and declined

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	2 faced	nsubj
2	faced	face	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	strong	strong	ADJ	Degree=Pos	5 competition	amod
4	new	new	ADJ	Degree=Pos	5 competition	amod
5	competition	competition	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 faced	obj
6	and	and	CCONJ	_	7 declined	cc
7	declined	decline	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	2 faced	conj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	face	past	It	strong new competition					vn fill-9.8-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme competition=Destination
2	decline	past							vn calibratable_cos-45.6.1-1 «NP.attribute V»: agent=Attribute

Option 3

It became the only spice route to Europe forever

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	2 became	nsubj
2	became	become	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	6 route	det
4	only	only	ADJ	Degree=Pos	6 route	amod
5	spice	spice	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 route	compound
6	route	route	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 became	xcomp
7	to	to	ADP	_	8 Europe	case
8	Europe	Europe	PROPN	Number=Sing	6 route	nmod
9	forever	forever	ADV	_	2 became	advmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	become	past	It	the only spice route to Europe				forever property	vn become-109.1-1-1 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Patient

Option 4

The whole city of Venice moved to India to trade

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	3 city	det
2	whole	whole	ADJ	Degree=Pos	3 city	amod
3	city	city	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 moved	nsubj
4	of	of	ADP	_	5 Venice	case
5	Venice	Venice	PROPN	Number=Sing	3 city	nmod
6	moved	move	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
7	to	to	ADP	_	8 India	case
8	India	India	PROPN	Number=Sing	6 moved	obl
9	to	to	PART	_	10 trade	mark
10	trade	trade	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	6 moved	advcl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	move	past	the whole city of Venice		India				vn roll-51.3.1 «NP V PP.result»: agent=Theme to india=Result
2	trade	to-infinitive	the whole city of Venice not said here						vn exchange-13.6.1 «NP V NP»: agent=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.

This page in Markdown → https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/questions/geography/29-the-spice-trade-and-the-indian-ocean/t9/