Exam question 4 · How writing began: from tally marks and pictures to the al…

Ascertain the people to whom the alphabet owes the addition of letters for vowels.

Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 2 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: you, alphabet · What happens: ascertain, owe · To what, where: people, addition

This is exam question 4 of lesson 82 «How writing began: from tally marks and pictures to the alphabet» of the history course of Mova's primary school, asked in stiff, formal language. 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	Ascertain	ascertain	VERB	Mood=Imp VerbForm=Fin	root	root
2	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	3 people	det
3	people	people	NOUN	Number=Plur	1 Ascertain	obj
4	to	to	ADP	_	5 whom	case
5	whom	whom	PRON	PronType=Rel	3 people	nmod
6	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	7 alphabet	det
7	alphabet	alphabet	NOUN	Number=Sing	8 owes	nsubj
8	owes	owe	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	5 whom	acl:relcl
9	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	10 addition	det
10	addition	addition	NOUN	Number=Sing	8 owes	obj
11	of	of	ADP	_	12 letters	case
12	letters	letter	NOUN	Number=Plur	10 addition	nmod
13	for	for	ADP	_	14 vowels	case
14	vowels	vowel	NOUN	Number=Plur	12 letters	nmod
15	.	.	PUNCT	_	1 Ascertain	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	ascertain	imperative	you not said here	the people					vn discover-84 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent people=Topic
2	owe	present	the alphabet	the addition of letters for vowels					vn future_having-13.3 «NP V NP.theme (PP)»: agent=Agent addition=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 · ← Mova's choice

The Phoenicians

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	2 Phoenicians	det
2	Phoenicians	Phoenician	PROPN	Number=Plur	root	root

The frames reader finds no event or fact in this sentence.

Option 2 · ✓ the right answer

The Greeks

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	2 Greeks	det
2	Greeks	Greek	PROPN	Number=Plur	root	root

The frames reader finds no event or fact in this sentence.

Option 3

The Sumerians

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	2 Sumerians	det
2	Sumerians	Sumerian	PROPN	Number=Plur	root	root

The frames reader finds no event or fact in this sentence.

Option 4

The Egyptians

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	2 Egyptians	det
2	Egyptians	Egyptian	PROPN	Number=Plur	root	root

The frames reader finds no event or fact in this sentence.

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/82-how-writing-began-from-tally-marks-and-pictures-to-the-alphabet/e4/