Test 4 · Silent letters and the mystery of -ough

What would happen if English spelling followed speech exactly?

Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 1 · right ✓ · What happens: happen, follow

This is test 4 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

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	_	8 speech	mark
5	English	English	ADJ	Degree=Pos	6 spelling	amod
6	spelling	spelling	NOUN	Number=Sing	8 speech	compound
7	followed	follow	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	8 speech	amod
8	speech	speech	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 happen	advcl
9	exactly	exactly	ADV	_	3 happen	advmod
10	?	?	PUNCT	_	3 happen	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	happen	would						exactly property	vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
2	follow	participle							vn occur-48.3-1 «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.

The options

Option 1 · ← Mova's choice · ✓ the right answer

Knee would be "nee" and lamb "lam"

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Knee	knee	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 nee	nsubj
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	5 nee	aux
3	be	be	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	5 nee	cop
4	"	"	PUNCT	_	5 nee	punct
5	nee	nee	ADJ	Degree=Pos	root	root
6	"	"	PUNCT	_	5 nee	punct
7	and	and	CCONJ	_	8 lamb	cc
8	lamb	lamb	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 nee	conj
9	"	"	PUNCT	_	10 lam	punct
10	lam	lam	NOUN	Number=Sing	8 lamb	conj
11	"	"	PUNCT	_	8 lamb	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is in a quote	would	Knee					nee property	tree rules

Option 2

All words would get longer

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	All	all	DET	PronType=Tot	2 words	det
2	words	word	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 get	nsubj
3	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	4 get	aux
4	get	get	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
5	longer	long	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	4 get	xcomp

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	get	would	all words					long property	vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V S_ING»: agent=Experiencer

Option 3

Nothing, because English already spells every word as it sounds

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Nothing	nothing	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Neg	6 spells	nsubj
2	,	,	PUNCT	_	6 spells	punct
3	because	because	SCONJ	_	6 spells	mark
4	English	English	PROPN	Number=Sing	6 spells	nsubj
5	already	already	ADV	_	6 spells	advmod
6	spells	spell	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
7	every	every	DET	PronType=Tot	8 word	det
8	word	word	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 spells	obj
9	as	as	SCONJ	_	11 sounds	mark
10	it	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	11 sounds	nsubj
11	sounds	sound	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	6 spells	advcl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	spell	present	Nothing	every word					vn pronounce-29.3.1 «NP V NP ADVP»: agent=Agent word=Theme
2	sound	present	word						vn stimulus_subject-30.4 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Stimulus

Option 4

Only names would change

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Only	only	ADV	_	2 names	advmod
2	names	name	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 change	nsubj
3	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	4 change	aux
4	change	change	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	change	would	names						vn dress-41.1.1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent

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/t4/