Test 9 · ★★ · Glaciers and ice ages

What would happen to some big rivers of Asia in the dry season if their mountain glaciers vanished?

Mova's choice: option 2 · The right answer: option 3 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: mountain glaciers · What happens: happen, vanish

This is test 9 · ★★ of lesson 54 «Glaciers and ice ages» 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	_	7 rivers	case
5	some	some	DET	PronType=Ind	7 rivers	det
6	big	big	ADJ	Degree=Pos	7 rivers	amod
7	rivers	river	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 happen	obl
8	of	of	ADP	_	9 Asia	case
9	Asia	Asia	PROPN	Number=Sing	7 rivers	nmod
10	in	in	ADP	_	13 season	case
11	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	13 season	det
12	dry	dry	ADJ	Degree=Pos	13 season	amod
13	season	season	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 happen	obl
14	if	if	SCONJ	_	18 vanished	mark
15	their	their	PRON	Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	17 glaciers	nmod:poss
16	mountain	mountain	NOUN	Number=Sing	17 glaciers	compound
17	glaciers	glacier	NOUN	Number=Plur	18 vanished	nsubj
18	vanished	vanish	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part	3 happen	advcl
19	?	?	PUNCT	_	3 happen	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	happen	would					season	to some big rivers of Asia	vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
2	vanish a condition, not said to happen	participle	rivers's mountain glaciers						vn disappearance-48.2-1 «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

They would carry far more water for ever

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	3 carry	nsubj
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 carry	aux
3	carry	carry	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	far	far	ADV	Degree=Pos	5 more	advmod
5	more	more	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	6 water	amod
6	water	water	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 carry	obj
7	for	for	ADP	_	8 ever	case
8	ever	ever	ADV	PronType=Ind	3 carry	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	carry	would	They	more water					vn carry-11.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent water=Theme

Option 2 · ← Mova's choice

They would flow backwards

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	3 flow	nsubj
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 flow	aux
3	flow	flow	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	backwards	backwards	ADV	_	3 flow	advmod

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

Option 3 · ✓ the right answer

They could carry much less water

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	3 carry	nsubj
2	could	could	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 carry	aux
3	carry	carry	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	much	much	ADV	_	5 less	advmod
5	less	less	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	6 water	amod
6	water	water	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 carry	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	carry	could	They	less water					vn carry-11.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent water=Theme

Option 4

They would turn salty

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	3 turn	nsubj
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 turn	aux
3	turn	turn	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	salty	salty	ADJ	Degree=Pos	3 turn	xcomp

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	turn	would	They					salty property	vn roll-51.3.1 «NP.theme V»: agent=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.

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