Test 4 · ★★★ · Plurals that make no sense: mice, sheep and geese

What would happen if every English plural just added -s?

Mova's choice: option 4 · The right answer: option 2 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: English plural · What happens: happen, add · To what, where: -s

This is test 4 · ★★★ 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

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	_	9 added	mark
5	every	every	DET	PronType=Tot	7 plural	det
6	English	English	ADJ	Degree=Pos	7 plural	amod
7	plural	plural	NOUN	Number=Sing	9 added	nsubj
8	just	just	ADV	_	9 added	advmod
9	added	add	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 happen	advcl
10	-s	-	NOUN	Number=Plur	9 added	obj
11	?	?	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	add speech: assert a condition, not said to happen	past	every English plural	-s					vn mix-22.1-2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent -=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

Nothing, they already do

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Nothing	nothing	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Neg	root	root
2	,	,	PUNCT	_	1 Nothing	punct
3	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	5 do	nsubj
4	already	already	ADV	_	5 do	advmod
5	do	do	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	1 Nothing	acl:relcl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	do	present	they						vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent

Option 2 · ✓ the right answer

We'd say mouses, foots and childs, and the old forms would disappear

The tree, 13 words

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	We	we	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=1 PronType=Prs	3 say	nsubj
2	'd	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 say	aux
3	say	say	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	mouses	mouse	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	3 say	ccomp
5	,	,	PUNCT	_	6 foots	punct
6	foots	foot	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	3 say	parataxis
7	and	and	CCONJ	_	8 childs	cc
8	childs	child	NOUN	Number=Plur	6 foots	conj
9	,	,	PUNCT	_	15 disappear	punct
10	and	and	CCONJ	_	15 disappear	cc
11	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	13 forms	det
12	old	old	ADJ	Degree=Pos	13 forms	amod
13	forms	form	NOUN	Number=Plur	15 disappear	nsubj
14	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	15 disappear	aux
15	disappear	disappear	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	3 say	conj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	roles by
1	say speech: assert	would	We	vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic
2	mouse	present		tree rules
3	foot	present		tree rules
4	disappear	would	the old forms	vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme

Option 3

We'd have no plurals at all

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	We	we	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=1 PronType=Prs	3 have	nsubj
2	'd	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 have	aux
3	have	have	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	no	no	DET	PronType=Neg	5 plurals	det
5	plurals	plural	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 have	obj
6	at	at	ADP	_	7 all	case
7	all	all	DET	PronType=Tot	3 have	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	have	would	We	no plurals		all			vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent plural=Patient

Option 4 · ← Mova's choice

Every word would end in -en

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Every	every	DET	PronType=Tot	2 word	det
2	word	word	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 end	nsubj
3	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	4 end	aux
4	end	end	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
5	in	in	ADP	_	7 en	case
6	-	-	PUNCT	_	5 in	punct
7	en	en	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 end	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	end	would	every word			en			vn stop-55.4-1-1 «NP.eventuality V»: agent=Eventuality

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/t4/