Test 2 · ★★ · Time zones and the date line

Why did trains, not ships or horses, force countries to share one clock time?

Mova's choice: option 3 · The right answer: option 2 · wrong ✗ · What happens: do, share · To what, where: trains

This is test 2 · ★★ of lesson 4 «Time zones and the date line» 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	trains	train	NOUN	Number=Plur	2 did	obj
4	,	,	PUNCT	_	6 ships	punct
5	not	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	6 ships	advmod
6	ships	ship	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 trains	conj
7	or	or	CCONJ	_	8 horses	cc
8	horses	horse	NOUN	Number=Plur	6 ships	conj
9	,	,	PUNCT	_	11 countries	punct
10	force	force	NOUN	Number=Sing	11 countries	compound
11	countries	country	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 trains	conj
12	to	to	PART	_	13 share	mark
13	share	share	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	2 did	advcl
14	one	one	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	16 time	nummod
15	clock	clock	NOUN	Number=Sing	16 time	compound
16	time	time	NOUN	Number=Sing	13 share	obj
17	?	?	PUNCT	_	2 did	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	do	past		trains and ships or horses and force countries					vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent train=Eventuality
2	share	to-infinitive					time		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

Trains ran only at noon

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Trains	train	NOUN	Number=Plur	2 ran	nsubj
2	ran	run	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	only	only	ADV	_	5 noon	advmod
4	at	at	ADP	_	5 noon	case
5	noon	noon	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 ran	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	run	past	Trains				noon		vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme

Option 2 · ✓ the right answer

Trains were fast and needed one timetable for all stations

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Trains	train	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 fast	nsubj
2	were	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 fast	cop
3	fast	fast	ADJ	Degree=Pos	root	root
4	and	and	CCONJ	_	5 needed	cc
5	needed	need	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 fast	conj
6	one	one	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	7 timetable	nummod
7	timetable	timetable	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 needed	obj
8	for	for	ADP	_	10 stations	case
9	all	all	DET	PronType=Tot	10 stations	det
10	stations	station	NOUN	Number=Plur	5 needed	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is	past	Trains					fast property	tree rules
2	need	past	Trains not said here	one timetable				for all stations	vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: agent=Pivot timetable=Theme

Option 3 · ← Mova's choice

Ships always used London time

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Ships	ship	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 used	nsubj
2	always	always	ADV	PronType=Tot	3 used	advmod
3	used	use	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
4	London	London	PROPN	Number=Sing	5 time	compound
5	time	time	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 used	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	use	past	Ships				time	always property	vn eat-39.1 «NP V»: agent=Agent

Option 4

Horses could not tell the time

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Horses	horse	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 tell	nsubj
2	could	could	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	4 tell	aux
3	not	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	4 tell	advmod
4	tell	tell	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
5	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	6 time	det
6	time	time	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 tell	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	not tell speech: assert	could	Horses				time		vn transfer_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V»: 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/4-time-zones-and-the-date-line/t2/