Test 8 · Mesopotamia: the first cities and writing

Why do you think many peoples tell flood stories?

Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 4 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: you, many peoples · What happens: think, tell · To what, where: flood stories · Speech: someone speaks here

This is test 8 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	4 think	advmod
2	do	do	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=2 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	4 think	aux
3	you	you	PRON	Case=Nom Person=2 PronType=Prs	4 think	nsubj
4	think	think	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
5	many	many	ADJ	Degree=Pos	6 peoples	amod
6	peoples	people	NOUN	Number=Plur	7 tell	nsubj
7	tell	tell	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	4 think	ccomp
8	flood	flood	NOUN	Number=Sing	9 stories	compound
9	stories	story	NOUN	Number=Plur	7 tell	obj
10	?	?	PUNCT	_	4 think	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	think speech: other	present · do-support	you						vn consider-29.9-2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Theme
2	tell speech: assert	present	many peoples	flood stories					vn transfer_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent story=Recipient

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

Every land had the same king

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Every	every	DET	PronType=Tot	2 land	det
2	land	land	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 had	nsubj
3	had	have	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
4	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	6 king	det
5	same	same	ADJ	Degree=Pos	6 king	amod
6	king	king	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 had	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	have	past	every land	the same king					vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent king=Patient

Option 2

Someone sent one book round the whole world long ago

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Someone	someone	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Ind	2 sent	nsubj
2	sent	send	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	one	one	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	4 book	nummod
4	book	book	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 sent	obj
5	round	round	ADP	_	8 world	case
6	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	8 world	det
7	whole	whole	ADJ	Degree=Pos	8 world	amod
8	world	world	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 sent	obl
9	long	long	ADV	Degree=Pos	10 ago	advmod
10	ago	ago	ADV	_	2 sent	advmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	send	past	Someone	one book				round the whole world; ago property	vn confine-92-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent book=Theme

Option 3

Floods never happened anywhere

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Floods	flood	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 happened	nsubj
2	never	never	ADV	PronType=Neg	3 happened	advmod
3	happened	happen	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
4	anywhere	anywhere	ADV	PronType=Ind	3 happened	advmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	not happen	past	Floods					anywhere property	vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme

Option 4 · ✓ the right answer

Real floods were big, scary events for river peoples

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Real	real	ADJ	Degree=Pos	2 floods	amod
2	floods	flood	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 big	nsubj
3	were	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	4 big	cop
4	big	big	ADJ	Degree=Pos	root	root
5	,	,	PUNCT	_	7 events	punct
6	scary	scary	ADJ	Degree=Pos	7 events	amod
7	events	event	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 big	conj
8	for	for	ADP	_	10 peoples	case
9	river	river	NOUN	Number=Sing	10 peoples	compound
10	peoples	people	NOUN	Number=Plur	7 events	nmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is	past	Real floods					big 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/3-mesopotamia-first-cities-and-writing/t8/