Test 3 · ★★★ · Plurals that make no sense: mice, sheep and geese

Your little brother insists "two gooses" is fine because "two mongooses" is. What's true?

Mova's choice: option 2 · The right answer: option 2 · right ✓ · Who acts: little brother, two mongooses · What happens: insist, be · To what, where: two gooses

This is test 3 · ★★★ of lesson 10 «Plurals that make no sense: mice, sheep and geese» 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

Sentence 1: Your little brother insists "two gooses" is fine because "two mongooses" is.

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Your	your	PRON	Case=Gen Person=2 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	3 brother	nmod:poss
2	little	little	ADJ	Degree=Pos	3 brother	amod
3	brother	brother	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 insists	nsubj
4	insists	insist	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
5	"	"	PUNCT	_	7 gooses	punct
6	two	two	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	7 gooses	nummod
7	gooses	goose	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 insists	obj
8	"	"	PUNCT	_	7 gooses	punct
9	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	10 fine	cop
10	fine	fine	ADJ	Degree=Pos	4 insists	conj
11	because	because	SCONJ	_	16 is	mark
12	"	"	PUNCT	_	14 mongooses	punct
13	two	two	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	14 mongooses	nummod
14	mongooses	mongoose	NOUN	Number=Plur	16 is	nsubj
15	"	"	PUNCT	_	14 mongooses	punct
16	is	be	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	10 fine	advcl
17	.	.	PUNCT	_	4 insists	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	other	roles by
1	insist speech: other	present	Your little brother	two gooses		vn say-37.7-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent goose=Topic
2	is	present	Your little brother not said here		fine property	tree rules
3	does	present	two mongooses			vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=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.

Sentence 2: What's true?

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	What	what	PRON	PronType=Int	3 true	nsubj
2	's	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	3 true	cop
3	true	true	ADJ	Degree=Pos	root	root
4	?	?	PUNCT	_	3 true	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is	present						true property	tree rules

The options

Option 1

Both should change to -geese

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Both	both	DET	PronType=Tot	3 change	nsubj
2	should	should	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 change	aux
3	change	change	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	to	to	ADP	_	6 geese	case
5	-	-	PUNCT	_	4 to	punct
6	geese	goose	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 change	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	change	should	Both					to geese result	vn turn-26.6.1-1 «NP V PP.result»: agent=Agent to goose=Result

Option 2 · ← Mova's choice · ✓ the right answer

Goose is old English and changes to geese; mongoose is from Marathi

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Goose	goose	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 English	nsubj
2	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	4 English	cop
3	old	old	ADJ	Degree=Pos	4 English	amod
4	English	English	PROPN	Number=Sing	root	root
5	and	and	CCONJ	_	6 changes	cc
6	changes	change	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	4 English	conj
7	to	to	ADP	_	8 geese	case
8	geese	goose	NOUN	Number=Plur	6 changes	obl
9	;	;	PUNCT	_	13 Marathi	punct
10	mongoose	mongoose	NOUN	Number=Sing	13 Marathi	nsubj
11	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	13 Marathi	cop
12	from	from	ADP	_	13 Marathi	case
13	Marathi	Marathi	PROPN	Number=Sing	4 English	conj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	other	roles by
1	is a	present	Goose	old English and Marathi			tree rules
2	change	present	Goose not said here			to geese result	vn turn-26.6.1-1 «NP V PP.result»: agent=Agent to goose=Result
3	is	present	mongoose		Marathi		tree rules

Option 3

He's right, both words just add -es like every other word

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 right	nsubj
2	's	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	3 right	cop
3	right	right	ADJ	Degree=Pos	root	root
4	,	,	PUNCT	_	8 add	punct
5	both	both	DET	PronType=Tot	6 words	det
6	words	word	NOUN	Number=Plur	8 add	nsubj
7	just	just	ADV	_	8 add	advmod
8	add	add	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	3 right	parataxis
9	-	-	PUNCT	_	10 es	punct
10	es	e	NOUN	Number=Plur	8 add	obj
11	like	like	ADP	_	14 word	case
12	every	every	DET	PronType=Tot	14 word	det
13	other	other	ADJ	Degree=Pos	14 word	amod
14	word	word	NOUN	Number=Sing	8 add	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is	present	He					right property	tree rules
2	add speech: assert	infinitive	both words	es				like every other word	vn mix-22.1-2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent e=Patient

Option 4

Neither word has a plural

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Neither	neither	DET	PronType=Neg	2 word	det
2	word	word	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 has	nsubj
3	has	have	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
4	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	5 plural	det
5	plural	plural	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 has	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	have	present	neither word	a plural					vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent plural=Patient

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/10-plurals-mice-sheep-and-geese/t3/