Test 7 · ★ · China: the Silk Road and the Tang

If diseases also travelled along the Silk Road, what does that tell us?

Mova's choice: option 4 · The right answer: option 3 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: diseases, that · What happens: travel, tell · To what, where: Silk Road, us · Speech: someone speaks here

This is test 7 · ★ of lesson 54 «China: the Silk Road and the Tang» 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	If	if	SCONJ	_	4 travelled	mark
2	diseases	disease	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 travelled	nsubj
3	also	also	ADV	_	4 travelled	advmod
4	travelled	travel	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	13 tell	advcl
5	along	along	ADP	_	8 Road	case
6	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	8 Road	det
7	Silk	Silk	PROPN	Number=Sing	8 Road	compound
8	Road	Road	PROPN	Number=Sing	4 travelled	obl
9	,	,	PUNCT	_	4 travelled	punct
10	what	what	PRON	PronType=Int	13 tell	obj
11	does	do	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	13 tell	aux
12	that	that	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Dem	13 tell	nsubj
13	tell	tell	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
14	us	we	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=1 PronType=Prs	13 tell	iobj
15	?	?	PUNCT	_	13 tell	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	travel a condition, not said to happen	past	diseases			the Silk Road			vn run-51.3.2-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme along road=Trajectory
2	tell speech: assert	present · do-support	that		us				vn transfer_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent we=Recipient what=Topic

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

Traders never got ill

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Traders	trader	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 got	nsubj
2	never	never	ADV	PronType=Neg	3 got	advmod
3	got	get	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
4	ill	ill	ADJ	Degree=Pos	3 got	xcomp

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	not get	past	Traders					ill property	vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V S_ING»: agent=Experiencer

Option 2

Germs cannot travel

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Germs	germ	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 travel	nsubj
2	can	can	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	4 travel	aux
3	not	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	4 travel	advmod
4	travel	travel	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	not travel	can	Germs						vn run-51.3.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme

Option 3 · ✓ the right answer

Trade routes carry germs as well as goods

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Trade	trade	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 routes	compound
2	routes	route	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 carry	nsubj
3	carry	carry	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
4	germs	germ	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 carry	obj
5	as	as	ADV	ExtPos=ADV	3 carry	advmod
6	well	well	ADV	Degree=Pos	5 as	fixed
7	as	as	ADP	_	8 goods	case
8	goods	goods	NOUN	Number=Ptan	3 carry	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	carry	present	Trade routes	germs				as goods	vn carry-11.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent germ=Theme

Option 4 · ← Mova's choice

Only silk can travel

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Only	only	ADV	_	2 silk	advmod
2	silk	silk	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 travel	nsubj
3	can	can	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	4 travel	aux
4	travel	travel	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	travel	can	silk						vn run-51.3.2-1 «NP V»: agent=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.

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