Exam question 2 · Grammar puzzles, part one

Identify the word functioning as the verb in the sentence "The old man the boat".

Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 3 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: you, boat · What happens: identify, man · To what, where: word

This is exam question 2 of lesson 11 «Grammar puzzles, part one» of the language 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	Identify	identify	VERB	Mood=Imp VerbForm=Fin	root	root
2	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	3 word	det
3	word	word	NOUN	Number=Sing	1 Identify	obj
4	functioning	functioning	ADJ	Degree=Pos	1 Identify	xcomp
5	as	as	ADP	_	7 verb	case
6	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	7 verb	det
7	verb	verb	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 functioning	obl
8	in	in	ADP	_	10 sentence	case
9	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	10 sentence	det
10	sentence	sentence	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 verb	nmod
11	"	"	PUNCT	_	14 man	punct
12	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	14 man	det
13	old	old	ADJ	Degree=Pos	14 man	amod
14	man	man	NOUN	Number=Sing	10 sentence	appos
15	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	16 boat	det
16	boat	boat	NOUN	Number=Sing	14 man	nsubj
17	"	"	PUNCT	_	14 man	punct
18	.	.	PUNCT	_	1 Identify	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	identify	imperative	you not said here	the word				functioning property	vn characterize-29.2-1-1 «NP V NP S_ING»: agent=Agent word=Theme
2	man in a quote		the boat						tree rules

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

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	root	root

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

Option 2

boat

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	boat	boat	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root

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

Option 3 · ✓ the right answer

man

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	man	man	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root

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

Option 4

old

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	old	old	ADJ	Degree=Pos	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/language/11-grammar-puzzles-part-one/e2/