Test 11 · ★ · Punctuation that changes meaning

Puzzle: add commas to "Mum said Dad is late" so that Dad is the speaker and Mum is the one who is late.

Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 4 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: Puzzle, Mum, Dad, one · What happens: add, say, be · To what, where: commas, speaker, one · Speech: someone speaks here

This is test 11 · ★ of lesson 14 «Punctuation that changes meaning» 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	Puzzle	puzzle	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 add	nsubj
2	:	:	PUNCT	_	1 Puzzle	punct
3	add	add	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	commas	comma	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 add	obj
5	to	to	ADP	_	8 said	case
6	"	"	PUNCT	_	8 said	punct
7	Mum	mum	NOUN	Number=Sing	8 said	nsubj
8	said	say	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 add	advcl
9	Dad	Dad	PROPN	Number=Sing	11 late	nsubj
10	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	11 late	cop
11	late	late	ADJ	Degree=Pos	8 said	ccomp
12	"	"	PUNCT	_	11 late	punct
13	so	so	SCONJ	_	18 speaker	mark
14	that	that	SCONJ	_	18 speaker	mark
15	Dad	Dad	PROPN	Number=Sing	18 speaker	nsubj
16	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	18 speaker	cop
17	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	18 speaker	det
18	speaker	speaker	NOUN	Number=Sing	8 said	ccomp
19	and	and	CCONJ	_	23 one	cc
20	Mum	mum	NOUN	Number=Sing	23 one	nsubj
21	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	23 one	cop
22	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	23 one	det
23	one	one	NOUN	Number=Sing	18 speaker	conj
24	who	who	PRON	PronType=Rel	26 late	nsubj
25	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	26 late	cop
26	late	late	ADJ	Degree=Pos	23 one	acl:relcl
27	.	.	PUNCT	_	3 add	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	other	roles by
1	add speech: assert	infinitive	Puzzle	commas		vn mix-22.1-2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent comma=Patient
2	say speech: assert in a quote	past	Mum			vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent
3	is in a quote	present	Dad		late property	tree rules
4	is a	present	Dad	the speaker and the one		tree rules
5	is a	present	Mum	the one		tree rules
6	is	present	the one		late property	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

Mum said, Dad is late

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Mum	mum	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 said	nsubj
2	said	say	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	,	,	PUNCT	_	2 said	punct
4	Dad	dad	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 late	nsubj
5	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	6 late	cop
6	late	late	ADJ	Degree=Pos	2 said	ccomp

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	say speech: assert	past	Mum						vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent
2	is	present	Dad					late property	tree rules

Option 2

Mum said Dad, is late

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Mum	mum	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 said	nsubj
2	said	say	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	Dad	Dad	PROPN	Number=Sing	6 late	nsubj
4	,	,	PUNCT	_	3 Dad	punct
5	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	6 late	cop
6	late	late	ADJ	Degree=Pos	2 said	ccomp

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	say speech: assert	past	Mum						vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent
2	is	present	Dad					late property	tree rules

Option 3

Mum said Dad is, late

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Mum	mum	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 said	nsubj
2	said	say	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	Dad	Dad	PROPN	Number=Sing	2 said	nsubj
4	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	3 Dad	cop
5	,	,	PUNCT	_	6 late	punct
6	late	late	ADJ	Degree=Pos	3 Dad	acl:relcl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	say speech: assert	past	Mum						vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent
2	is a	present		Dad					tree rules

Option 4 · ✓ the right answer

Mum, said Dad, is late

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Mum	mum	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 said	nsubj
2	,	,	PUNCT	_	1 Mum	punct
3	said	say	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
4	Dad	Dad	PROPN	Number=Sing	7 late	nsubj
5	,	,	PUNCT	_	4 Dad	punct
6	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	7 late	cop
7	late	late	ADJ	Degree=Pos	3 said	ccomp

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	say speech: assert	past	Mum						vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent
2	is	present	Dad					late 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/14-punctuation-that-changes-meaning/t11/