Test 5 · Nouns: the names of things, people, places and ideas

What would happen if a word could never change its class?

Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 4 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: word · What happens: happen, not change · To what, where: class

This is test 5 of lesson 2 «Nouns: the names of things, people, places and ideas» 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 change	mark
5	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	6 word	det
6	word	word	NOUN	Number=Sing	9 change	nsubj
7	could	could	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	9 change	aux
8	never	never	ADV	PronType=Neg	9 change	advmod
9	change	change	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	3 happen	advcl
10	its	its	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	11 class	nmod:poss
11	class	class	NOUN	Number=Sing	9 change	obj
12	?	?	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	not change a condition, not said to happen	could	a word	word's class					vn dress-41.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent class=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 · ← Mova's choice

All nouns would turn into verbs

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	All	all	DET	PronType=Tot	2 nouns	det
2	nouns	noun	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 turn	nsubj
3	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	4 turn	aux
4	turn	turn	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
5	into	into	ADP	_	6 verbs	case
6	verbs	verb	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 turn	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	turn	would	all nouns			verbs			vn roll-51.3.1 «NP V PP.trajectory»: agent=Theme into verb=Trajectory

Option 2

Nothing at all would change in English

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Nothing	nothing	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Neg	5 change	nsubj
2	at	at	ADP	_	3 all	case
3	all	all	DET	PronType=Tot	1 Nothing	nmod
4	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	5 change	aux
5	change	change	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
6	in	in	ADP	_	7 English	case
7	English	English	PROPN	Number=Sing	5 change	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	change	would	Nothing			English			vn dress-41.1.1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent

Option 3

Sentences would lose their capital letters

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Sentences	sentence	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 lose	nsubj
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 lose	aux
3	lose	lose	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	their	their	PRON	Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	6 letters	nmod:poss
5	capital	capital	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 letters	compound
6	letters	letter	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 lose	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	lose	would	Sentences	Sentences's capital letters					vn succeed-74-3-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent letter=Eventuality
2	letter		Sentences = sentence						nom letter «communication transitive»: poss=agent

Option 4 · ✓ the right answer

"Run" couldn't be both a thing and an action, so we'd need more words

The tree, 16 words

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	"	"	PUNCT	_	2 Run	punct
2	Run	Run	PROPN	Number=Sing	9 thing	nsubj
3	"	"	PUNCT	_	2 Run	punct
4	could	could	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	9 thing	aux
5	n't	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	9 thing	advmod
6	be	be	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	9 thing	cop
7	both	both	CCONJ	_	9 thing	cc:preconj
8	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	9 thing	det
9	thing	thing	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root
10	and	and	CCONJ	_	12 action	cc
11	an	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	12 action	det
12	action	action	NOUN	Number=Sing	9 thing	conj
13	,	,	PUNCT	_	17 need	punct
14	so	so	ADV	_	17 need	advmod
15	we	we	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=1 PronType=Prs	17 need	nsubj
16	'd	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	17 need	aux
17	need	need	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	9 thing	conj
18	more	more	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	19 words	amod
19	words	word	NOUN	Number=Plur	17 need	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	not is a	could	Run	a thing and a action					tree rules
2	need	would	we	more words					vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: agent=Pivot word=Theme

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/2-nouns-names-of-things-people-places-ideas/t5/