Test 7 · ★★ · Ancient China: paper, silk, the Silk Road and Confucius

Why do camels suit desert caravans better than horses?

Mova's choice: option 3 · The right answer: option 3 · right ✓ · Who acts: camels · What happens: suit

This is test 7 · ★★ of lesson 10 «Ancient China: paper, silk, the Silk Road and Confucius» of the history 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 suit	advmod
2	do	do	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	4 suit	aux
3	camels	camel	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 suit	nsubj
4	suit	suit	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
5	desert	desert	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 caravans	compound
6	caravans	caravan	NOUN	Number=Plur	7 better	nsubj
7	better	good	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	4 suit	ccomp
8	than	than	ADP	_	9 horses	case
9	horses	horse	NOUN	Number=Plur	7 better	obl
10	?	?	PUNCT	_	4 suit	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	suit	present · do-support	camels						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

They can fly over the tallest dunes

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 fly	nsubj
2	can	can	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 fly	aux
3	fly	fly	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	over	over	ADP	_	7 dunes	case
5	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	7 dunes	det
6	tallest	tall	ADJ	Degree=Sup	7 dunes	amod
7	dunes	dune	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 fly	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	fly	can	They			the tallest dunes			vn spatial_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme over dune=Location

Option 2

They never need any food or water at all

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 need	nsubj
2	never	never	ADV	PronType=Neg	3 need	advmod
3	need	need	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
4	any	any	DET	PronType=Ind	5 food	det
5	food	food	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 need	obj
6	or	or	CCONJ	_	7 water	cc
7	water	water	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 food	conj
8	at	at	ADP	_	9 all	case
9	all	all	DET	PronType=Tot	3 need	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	not need	present	They	any food or water		all			vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: agent=Pivot food=Theme

Option 3 · ← Mova's choice · ✓ the right answer

They can go a long time without drinking

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 go	nsubj
2	can	can	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 go	aux
3	go	go	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	6 time	det
5	long	long	ADJ	Degree=Pos	6 time	amod
6	time	time	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 go	obl:unmarked
7	without	without	SCONJ	_	8 drinking	mark
8	drinking	drink	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	3 go	advcl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	go	can	They				time		vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
2	drink	gerund	They not said here						vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent

Option 4

They are faster than any horse or car

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 horse	nsubj
2	are	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	6 horse	cop
3	faster	fast	ADV	Degree=Cmp	6 horse	advmod
4	than	than	ADP	_	6 horse	case
5	any	any	DET	PronType=Ind	6 horse	det
6	horse	horse	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root
7	or	or	CCONJ	_	8 car	cc
8	car	car	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 horse	conj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is	present	They					than any horse or car; fast property	tree rules

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/history/10-ancient-china-paper-silk-the-silk-road-and-confucius/t7/