Exam question 4 · Mesopotamia: the first cities and writing

Determine the base of the system of numeration employed by the Sumerians, whereof traces persist in the measurement of time.

Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 3 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: you, traces · What happens: determine, employ, persist, measure · To what, where: base, numeration, measurement, time

This is exam question 4 of lesson 3 «Mesopotamia: the first cities and writing» of the history course of Mova's primary school, asked in stiff, formal language. 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	Determine	determine	VERB	Mood=Imp VerbForm=Fin	root	root
2	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	3 base	det
3	base	base	NOUN	Number=Sing	1 Determine	obj
4	of	of	ADP	_	6 system	case
5	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	6 system	det
6	system	system	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 base	nmod
7	of	of	ADP	_	8 numeration	case
8	numeration	numeration	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 system	nmod
9	employed	employ	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	8 numeration	acl
10	by	by	ADP	_	12 Sumerians	case
11	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	12 Sumerians	det
12	Sumerians	Sumerian	PROPN	Number=Plur	9 employed	obl:agent
13	,	,	PUNCT	_	16 persist	punct
14	whereof	whereof	ADV	PronType=Int	16 persist	advmod
15	traces	trace	NOUN	Number=Plur	16 persist	nsubj
16	persist	persist	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	1 Determine	parataxis
17	in	in	ADP	_	19 measurement	case
18	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	19 measurement	det
19	measurement	measurement	NOUN	Number=Sing	16 persist	obl
20	of	of	ADP	_	21 time	case
21	time	time	NOUN	Number=Sing	19 measurement	nmod
22	.	.	PUNCT	_	1 Determine	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	other	roles by
1	determine	imperative	you not said here	the base of the system of numeration			vn discover-84 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent base=Topic
2	employ	participle		numeration not said here			vn hire-13.5.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent
3	persist	present	traces		the measurement of time	whereof property	vn exist-47.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in measurement=Location
4	measure			time			nom measurement «act transitive»: of=patient

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 · ← Mova's choice

Twelve

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Twelve	twelve	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	root	root

The frames reader finds no event or fact in this sentence.

Option 2

Ten

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Ten	ten	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	root	root

The frames reader finds no event or fact in this sentence.

Option 3 · ✓ the right answer

Sixty

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Sixty	sixty	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	root	root

The frames reader finds no event or fact in this sentence.

Option 4

Twenty

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Twenty	twenty	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	root	root

The frames reader finds no event or fact in this sentence.

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/3-mesopotamia-first-cities-and-writing/e4/