Test 3 · What language is: sounds, words and rules everyone shares

What would happen if English had no word-order rules at all?

Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 3 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: English · What happens: happen, have · To what, where: order rules, all

This is test 3 of lesson 1 «What language is: sounds, words and rules everyone shares» of the language 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	_	6 had	mark
5	English	English	PROPN	Number=Sing	6 had	nsubj
6	had	have	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 happen	advcl
7	no	no	DET	PronType=Neg	11 rules	det
8	word	word	NOUN	Number=Sing	10 order	compound
9	-	-	PUNCT	_	8 word	punct
10	order	order	NOUN	Number=Sing	11 rules	compound
11	rules	rule	NOUN	Number=Plur	6 had	obj
12	at	at	ADP	_	13 all	case
13	all	all	DET	PronType=Tot	11 rules	nmod
14	?	?	PUNCT	_	3 happen	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	happen	would							vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
2	have a condition, not said to happen	past	English	no order rules		all			vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent rule=Patient

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

Only poems would stop making sense

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Only	only	ADV	_	2 poems	advmod
2	poems	poem	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 stop	nsubj
3	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	4 stop	aux
4	stop	stop	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
5	making	make	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	4 stop	xcomp
6	sense	sense	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 making	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	stop	would	poems						vn stop-55.4-1-1 «NP V S_ING»: agent=Affector clause=Eventuality
2	make	gerund	poems not said here	sense					vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset sense=Product

Option 2

Only poems and songs would stop making any sense at all

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Only	only	ADV	_	2 poems	advmod
2	poems	poem	NOUN	Number=Plur	6 stop	nsubj
3	and	and	CCONJ	_	4 songs	cc
4	songs	song	NOUN	Number=Plur	2 poems	conj
5	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	6 stop	aux
6	stop	stop	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
7	making	make	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	6 stop	xcomp
8	any	any	DET	PronType=Ind	9 sense	det
9	sense	sense	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 making	obj
10	at	at	ADP	_	11 all	case
11	all	all	DET	PronType=Tot	7 making	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	stop	would	poems and songs						vn stop-55.4-1-1 «NP V S_ING»: agent=Affector clause=Eventuality
2	make	gerund	poems and songs not said here	any sense		all			vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset sense=Product

Option 3 · ✓ the right answer

You often couldn't tell who did what to whom

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	You	you	PRON	Case=Nom Person=2 PronType=Prs	5 tell	nsubj
2	often	often	ADV	_	5 tell	advmod
3	could	could	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	5 tell	aux
4	n't	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	5 tell	advmod
5	tell	tell	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
6	who	who	PRON	PronType=Rel	7 did	nsubj
7	did	do	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	5 tell	ccomp
8	what	what	PRON	PronType=Int	7 did	obj
9	to	to	PART	_	10 whom	mark
10	whom	whom	PRON	PronType=Int	8 what	conj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	not tell speech: assert	could	You					often property	vn transfer_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic
2	do	past							vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent what=Eventuality

Option 4

Nothing, meaning never depends on order

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Nothing	nothing	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Neg	5 depends	nsubj
2	,	,	PUNCT	_	3 meaning	punct
3	meaning	mean	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	1 Nothing	acl
4	never	never	ADV	PronType=Neg	5 depends	advmod
5	depends	depend	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
6	on	on	ADP	_	7 order	case
7	order	order	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 depends	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	mean	gerund							vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V S»: agent=Agent
2	not depend	present	Nothing					on order	vn rely-70 «NP V PP.theme S_ING»: agent=Agent on order=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/language/1-what-language-is-sounds-words-and-rules/t3/