Test 8 · ★★ · Ancient Egypt: pyramids, mummies and hieroglyphs

Why did the Great Pyramid hold the record for tallest building for so long?

Mova's choice: option 4 · The right answer: option 3 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: Great Pyramid · What happens: hold · To what, where: record

This is test 8 · ★★ of lesson 6 «Ancient Egypt: pyramids, mummies and hieroglyphs» 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	6 hold	advmod
2	did	do	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	6 hold	aux
3	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	5 Pyramid	det
4	Great	great	ADJ	Degree=Pos	5 Pyramid	amod
5	Pyramid	Pyramid	PROPN	Number=Sing	6 hold	nsubj
6	hold	hold	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
7	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	8 record	det
8	record	record	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 hold	obj
9	for	for	ADP	_	11 building	case
10	tallest	tall	ADJ	Degree=Sup	11 building	amod
11	building	building	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 hold	obl
12	for	for	ADP	_	14 long	case
13	so	so	ADV	_	14 long	advmod
14	long	long	ADV	Degree=Pos	6 hold	obl
15	?	?	PUNCT	_	6 hold	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	hold	past · do-support	the Great Pyramid	the record				for tallest building	vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent record=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

It kept growing taller each year as sand piled up on top

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	It	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	2 kept	nsubj
2	kept	keep	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	growing	grow	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	2 kept	xcomp
4	taller	tall	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	3 growing	xcomp
5	each	each	DET	PronType=Tot	6 year	det
6	year	year	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 growing	obl:unmarked
7	as	as	ADP	_	8 sand	case
8	sand	sand	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 growing	obl
9	piled	pile	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	8 sand	acl
10	up	up	ADP	_	9 piled	compound:prt
11	on	on	ADP	_	12 top	case
12	top	top	NOUN	Number=Sing	9 piled	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	keep	past	It					tree rules
2	grow	gerund				year	as sand; tall property	vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
3	pile up	participle		sand not said here	top			vn spray-9.7-1-1 «NP V PP.destination»: agent=Theme on top=Destination

Option 2

People forgot how to build at all

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	People	people	NOUN	Number=Plur	2 forgot	nsubj
2	forgot	forget	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	how	how	ADV	PronType=Int	5 build	advmod
4	to	to	PART	_	5 build	mark
5	build	build	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	2 forgot	xcomp
6	at	at	ADP	_	7 all	case
7	all	all	DET	PronType=Tot	5 build	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	forget	past	People						tree rules
2	not build	to-infinitive	People not said here			all			vn calibratable_cos-45.6.1 «NP.attribute V»: agent=Attribute

Option 3 · ✓ the right answer

Nobody built anything taller for nearly 4,000 years

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Nobody	nobody	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Neg	2 built	nsubj
2	built	build	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	anything	anything	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Ind	2 built	obj
4	taller	tall	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	3 anything	amod
5	for	for	ADP	_	8 years	case
6	nearly	nearly	ADV	_	7 4,000	advmod
7	4,000	4,000	NUM	NumForm=Digit NumType=Card	8 years	nummod
8	years	year	NOUN	Number=Plur	2 built	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	build	past	Nobody	anything			year		vn build-26.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent anything=Product

Option 4 · ← Mova's choice

It was the only building in the world

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	It	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	5 building	nsubj
2	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	5 building	cop
3	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	5 building	det
4	only	only	ADJ	Degree=Pos	5 building	amod
5	building	building	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root
6	in	in	ADP	_	8 world	case
7	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	8 world	det
8	world	world	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 building	nmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is a	past	It	the only building		the world			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/6-ancient-egypt-pyramids-mummies-and-hieroglyphs/t8/