Test 6 · Mesopotamia: the first cities and writing

Why did Mesopotamian farmers need canals but jungle farmers might not?

Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 3 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: Mesopotamian farmers · What happens: need · To what, where: canals

This is test 6 of lesson 3 «Mesopotamia: the first cities and writing» 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	5 need	advmod
2	did	do	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	4 farmers	aux
3	Mesopotamian	mesopotamian	ADJ	Degree=Pos	4 farmers	amod
4	farmers	farmer	NOUN	Number=Plur	5 need	nsubj
5	need	need	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
6	canals	canal	NOUN	Number=Plur	5 need	obj
7	but	but	CCONJ	_	10 might	cc
8	jungle	jungle	NOUN	Number=Sing	9 farmers	compound
9	farmers	farmer	NOUN	Number=Plur	10 might	nsubj
10	might	might	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	5 need	conj
11	not	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	10 might	advmod
12	?	?	PUNCT	_	5 need	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	need	present	Mesopotamian farmers	canals					vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: agent=Pivot canal=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 · ← Mova's choice

Jungle plants do not need water

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Jungle	jungle	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 plants	compound
2	plants	plant	NOUN	Number=Plur	5 need	nsubj
3	do	do	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	5 need	aux
4	not	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	5 need	advmod
5	need	need	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
6	water	water	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 need	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	not need	present · do-support	Jungle plants	water					vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: agent=Pivot water=Theme

Option 2

Canals were only for fun

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Canals	canal	NOUN	Number=Plur	5 fun	nsubj
2	were	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	5 fun	cop
3	only	only	ADV	_	5 fun	advmod
4	for	for	ADP	_	5 fun	case
5	fun	fun	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is	past	Canals					for fun	tree rules

Option 3 · ✓ the right answer

Mesopotamia was dry and needed river water

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Mesopotamia	Mesopotamia	PROPN	Number=Sing	3 dry	nsubj
2	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 dry	cop
3	dry	dry	ADJ	Degree=Pos	root	root
4	and	and	CCONJ	_	5 needed	cc
5	needed	need	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 dry	conj
6	river	river	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 water	compound
7	water	water	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 needed	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is	past	Mesopotamia					dry property	tree rules
2	need	past	Mesopotamia not said here	river water					vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: agent=Pivot water=Theme

Option 4

Mesopotamia had too much rain

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Mesopotamia	Mesopotamia	PROPN	Number=Sing	2 had	nsubj
2	had	have	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	too	too	ADV	_	4 much	advmod
4	much	much	ADJ	Degree=Pos	5 rain	amod
5	rain	rain	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 had	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	have	past	Mesopotamia	much rain					vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent rain=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.

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