Test 9 · China: five thousand years and the oldest dynasties

Why did merchants once sell oracle bones in medicine shops?

Mova's choice: option 4 · The right answer: option 4 · right ✓ · Who acts: merchants · What happens: do, sell · To what, where: oracle bones, medicine shops

This is test 9 of lesson 51 «China: five thousand years and the oldest dynasties» 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	2 did	advmod
2	did	do	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	merchants	merchant	NOUN	Number=Plur	5 sell	nsubj
4	once	once	ADV	NumForm=Word NumType=Mult	5 sell	advmod
5	sell	sell	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	2 did	ccomp
6	oracle	oracle	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 bones	compound
7	bones	bone	NOUN	Number=Plur	5 sell	obj
8	in	in	ADP	_	10 shops	case
9	medicine	medicine	NOUN	Number=Sing	10 shops	compound
10	shops	shop	NOUN	Number=Plur	5 sell	obl
11	?	?	PUNCT	_	2 did	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	do	past							tree rules
2	sell	present	merchants	oracle bones		medicine shops		once property	vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent bone=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

They tasted of honey

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	2 tasted	nsubj
2	tasted	taste	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	of	of	ADP	_	4 honey	case
4	honey	honey	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 tasted	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	taste	past	They					of honey	vn stimulus_subject-30.4 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Stimulus

Option 2

They were made of gold

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 made	nsubj
2	were	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 made	aux:pass
3	made	make	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	root	root
4	of	of	ADP	_	5 gold	case
5	gold	gold	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 made	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	make	past · passive		They				of gold	vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: subject=Product

Option 3

They were silkworm cocoons

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	4 cocoons	nsubj
2	were	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	4 cocoons	cop
3	silkworm	silkworm	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 cocoons	compound
4	cocoons	cocoon	NOUN	Number=Plur	root	root

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is a	past	They	silkworm cocoons					tree rules

Option 4 · ← Mova's choice · ✓ the right answer

People thought they were «dragon bones»

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	People	people	NOUN	Number=Plur	2 thought	nsubj
2	thought	think	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	7 bones	nsubj
4	were	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	7 bones	cop
5	«	«	PUNCT	_	7 bones	punct
6	dragon	dragon	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 bones	compound
7	bones	bone	NOUN	Number=Plur	2 thought	ccomp
8	»	»	PUNCT	_	7 bones	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	think speech: other	past	People						vn focus-87.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent
2	is a in a quote	past	People	dragon bones					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.

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