Test 7 · China: the four great inventions

What would happen if a printer tried to make movable type for all Chinese characters?

Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 4 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: printer · What happens: happen, try, make · To what, where: movable type

This is test 7 of lesson 53 «China: the four great inventions» 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	What	what	PRON	PronType=Int	3 happen	nsubj
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 happen	aux
3	happen	happen	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	if	if	SCONJ	_	7 tried	mark
5	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	6 printer	det
6	printer	printer	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 tried	nsubj
7	tried	try	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 happen	advcl
8	to	to	PART	_	9 make	mark
9	make	make	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	7 tried	xcomp
10	movable	movable	ADJ	Degree=Pos	11 type	amod
11	type	type	NOUN	Number=Sing	9 make	obj
12	for	for	ADP	_	15 characters	case
13	all	all	DET	PronType=Tot	15 characters	det
14	Chinese	Chinese	ADJ	Degree=Pos	15 characters	amod
15	characters	character	NOUN	Number=Plur	9 make	obl
16	?	?	PUNCT	_	3 happen	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	other	roles by
1	happen	would				vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
2	try a condition, not said to happen	past	a printer			vn try-61.1 «NP V S_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality
3	make not said to happen	to-infinitive	a printer not said here	movable type	for all Chinese characters	vn build-26.1-1 «NP V NP P.asset»: agent=Agent type=Product for character=Asset

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

He would need only 10

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	He	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	3 need	nsubj
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 need	aux
3	need	need	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	only	only	ADV	_	5 10	advmod
5	10	10	NUM	NumForm=Digit NumType=Card	3 need	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	need	would	He	10					vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: agent=Pivot 10=Theme

Option 2

He would need none

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	He	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	3 need	nsubj
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 need	aux
3	need	need	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	none	none	PRON	PronType=Neg	3 need	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	need	would	He	none					vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: agent=Pivot none=Theme

Option 3

He would need only 26

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	He	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	3 need	nsubj
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 need	aux
3	need	need	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	only	only	ADV	_	5 26	advmod
5	26	26	NUM	NumForm=Digit NumType=Card	3 need	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	need	would	He	26					vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: agent=Pivot 26=Theme

Option 4 · ✓ the right answer

He would need thousands of different pieces

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	He	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	3 need	nsubj
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 need	aux
3	need	need	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	thousands	thousand	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 need	obj
5	of	of	ADP	_	7 pieces	case
6	different	different	ADJ	Degree=Pos	7 pieces	amod
7	pieces	piece	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 thousands	nmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	need	would	He	thousands of different pieces					vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: agent=Pivot thousand=Theme

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/53-china-the-four-great-inventions/t7/