Test 3 · Silent letters and the mystery of -ough
Your cousin reads "though, through, tough" out loud as "thuff, thruff, tuff". Which is right?
Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 3 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: cousin · What happens: read, be
This is test 3 of lesson 13 «Silent letters and the mystery of -ough» 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 cousin reads "though, through, tough" out loud as "thuff, thruff, tuff".
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 | 2 cousin | nmod:poss |
| 2 | cousin | cousin | NOUN | Number=Sing | 3 reads | nsubj |
| 3 | reads | read | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 4 | " | " | PUNCT | _ | 3 reads | punct |
| 5 | though | though | ADV | _ | 3 reads | advmod |
| 6 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 9 tough | punct |
| 7 | through | through | ADV | _ | 9 tough | advmod |
| 8 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 9 tough | punct |
| 9 | tough | tough | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 3 reads | conj |
| 10 | " | " | PUNCT | _ | 12 loud | punct |
| 11 | out | out | ADV | _ | 12 loud | advmod |
| 12 | loud | loud | ADV | _ | 9 tough | advmod |
| 13 | as | as | ADP | _ | 15 thuff | case |
| 14 | " | " | PUNCT | _ | 15 thuff | punct |
| 15 | thuff | thuff | NOUN | Number=Sing | 12 loud | obl |
| 16 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 17 thruff | punct |
| 17 | thruff | thruff | NOUN | Number=Sing | 15 thuff | conj |
| 18 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 19 tuff | punct |
| 19 | tuff | tuff | NOUN | Number=Sing | 15 thuff | appos |
| 20 | " | " | PUNCT | _ | 19 tuff | punct |
| 21 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 3 reads | punct |
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | read | present | Your cousin | though property | vn transfer_mesg-37.1.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
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: Which is right?
The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)
| # | word | lemma | UPOS | features | head | relation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Which | which | PRON | PronType=Rel | 3 right | nsubj |
| 2 | is | 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 | _ | 3 right | punct |
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | is | present | right property | tree rules |
The options
Option 1 · ← Mova's choice
Only "thruff"
The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)
| # | word | lemma | UPOS | features | head | relation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Only | only | ADV | _ | 3 thruff | advmod |
| 2 | " | " | PUNCT | _ | 3 thruff | punct |
| 3 | thruff | thruff | NOUN | Number=Sing | root | root |
| 4 | " | " | PUNCT | _ | 3 thruff | punct |
The frames reader finds no event or fact in this sentence.
Option 2
None of them
The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)
| # | word | lemma | UPOS | features | head | relation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | None | none | PRON | PronType=Neg | root | root |
| 2 | of | of | ADP | _ | 3 them | case |
| 3 | them | they | PRON | Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 1 None | nmod |
The frames reader finds no event or fact in this sentence.
Option 3 · ✓ the right answer
Only "tuff" is right
The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)
| # | word | lemma | UPOS | features | head | relation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Only | only | ADV | _ | 3 tuff | advmod |
| 2 | " | " | PUNCT | _ | 3 tuff | punct |
| 3 | tuff | tuff | NOUN | Number=Sing | 6 right | nsubj |
| 4 | " | " | PUNCT | _ | 3 tuff | punct |
| 5 | is | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 6 right | cop |
| 6 | right | right | ADJ | Degree=Pos | root | root |
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | is | present | tuff | right property | tree rules |
Option 4
All three are right
The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)
| # | word | lemma | UPOS | features | head | relation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | All | all | DET | PronType=Tot | 2 three | det |
| 2 | three | three | NUM | NumForm=Word NumType=Card | 4 right | nsubj |
| 3 | are | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 4 right | cop |
| 4 | right | right | ADJ | Degree=Pos | root | root |
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | is | present | all three | right property | tree rules |
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/13-silent-letters-and-the-mystery-of-ough/t3/