Test 4 · Soil

What would happen to a lawn if all its earthworms vanished?

Mova's choice: option 2 · The right answer: option 4 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: earthworms · What happens: happen, vanish

This is test 4 of lesson 56 «Soil» 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	_	6 lawn	case
5	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	6 lawn	det
6	lawn	lawn	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 happen	obl
7	if	if	SCONJ	_	11 vanished	mark
8	all	all	DET	PronType=Tot	10 earthworms	det:predet
9	its	its	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	10 earthworms	nmod:poss
10	earthworms	earthworm	NOUN	Number=Plur	11 vanished	nsubj
11	vanished	vanish	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part	3 happen	advcl
12	?	?	PUNCT	_	3 happen	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	happen	would						to a lawn	vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
2	vanish a condition, not said to happen	participle	lawn's earthworms						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

Nothing would change at all

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Nothing	nothing	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Neg	3 change	nsubj
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 change	aux
3	change	change	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	at	at	ADP	_	5 all	case
5	all	all	DET	PronType=Tot	3 change	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	change	would	Nothing			all			vn dress-41.1.1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent

Option 2 · ← Mova's choice

Soil would turn into rock at once

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Soil	soil	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 turn	nsubj
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 turn	aux
3	turn	turn	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	into	into	ADP	_	5 rock	case
5	rock	rock	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 turn	obl
6	at	at	ADP	_	7 once	case
7	once	once	ADV	NumForm=Word NumType=Mult	3 turn	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	turn	would	Soil			rock			vn roll-51.3.1 «NP.theme V PP.source PP.trajectory PP.destination»: agent=Theme into rock=Source at once=Trajectory

Option 3

Grass would grow twice as fast with nobody eating its roots underground

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Grass	grass	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 grow	nsubj
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 grow	aux
3	grow	grow	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	twice	twice	ADV	NumForm=Word NumType=Mult	3 grow	advmod
5	as	as	ADV	_	6 fast	advmod
6	fast	fast	ADV	Degree=Pos	4 twice	conj
7	with	with	SCONJ	_	9 eating	mark
8	nobody	nobody	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Neg	9 eating	nsubj
9	eating	eat	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	3 grow	advcl
10	its	its	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	11 roots	nmod:poss
11	roots	root	NOUN	Number=Plur	9 eating	obj
12	underground	underground	ADV	_	9 eating	advmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	grow	would	Grass					twice property	vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
2	eat	gerund	nobody	Grass's roots				underground property	vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent root=Patient

Option 4 · ✓ the right answer

Soil would get packed and airless, and dead leaves would rot slower

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Soil	soil	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 get	nsubj
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 get	aux
3	get	get	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	packed	packed	ADJ	Degree=Pos	3 get	xcomp
5	and	and	CCONJ	_	6 airless	cc
6	airless	airless	ADJ	Degree=Pos	4 packed	conj
7	,	,	PUNCT	_	12 rot	punct
8	and	and	CCONJ	_	12 rot	cc
9	dead	dead	ADJ	Degree=Pos	10 leaves	amod
10	leaves	leaf	NOUN	Number=Plur	12 rot	nsubj
11	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	12 rot	aux
12	rot	rot	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	3 get	conj
13	slower	slow	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	12 rot	xcomp

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	get	would	Soil					packed property	vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V S_ING»: agent=Experiencer
2	rot	would	dead leaves					slow property	vn entity_specific_cos-45.5 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient

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/56-soil/t4/