Test 10 · ★ · Borrowed words: French, Norse and Latin

Why is it surprising that English borrowed "they" from the Vikings?

Mova's choice: option 4 · The right answer: option 2 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: it, English · What happens: surprise, borrow · To what, where: they, Vikings

This is test 10 · ★ of lesson 23 «Borrowed words: French, Norse and Latin» 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	Why	why	ADV	PronType=Int	4 surprising	advmod
2	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	4 surprising	aux
3	it	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	4 surprising	nsubj
4	surprising	surprise	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	root	root
5	that	that	SCONJ	_	7 borrowed	mark
6	English	English	PROPN	Number=Sing	7 borrowed	nsubj
7	borrowed	borrow	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	4 surprising	advcl
8	"	"	PUNCT	_	9 they	punct
9	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	7 borrowed	obl
10	"	"	PUNCT	_	9 they	punct
11	from	from	ADP	_	13 Vikings	case
12	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	13 Vikings	det
13	Vikings	Viking	PROPN	Number=Plur	7 borrowed	obl
14	?	?	PUNCT	_	4 surprising	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	surprise	present · progressive	it						vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP-PRO-ARB»: agent=Stimulus
2	borrow	past	English	they		the Vikings			vn obtain-13.5.2 «NP V NP PP.source»: agent=Agent from viking=Source

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

Vikings never used the word "they"

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Vikings	Viking	PROPN	Number=Plur	3 used	nsubj
2	never	never	ADV	PronType=Neg	3 used	advmod
3	used	use	VERB	Mood=Ind Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
4	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	5 word	det
5	word	word	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 used	obj
6	"	"	PUNCT	_	7 they	punct
7	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	5 word	appos
8	"	"	PUNCT	_	7 they	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	not use	past	Vikings	the word					vn eat-39.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent word=Patient

Option 2 · ✓ the right answer

Small everyday words like that are rarely borrowed

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Small	small	ADJ	Degree=Pos	3 words	amod
2	everyday	everyday	ADJ	Degree=Pos	3 words	amod
3	words	word	NOUN	Number=Plur	8 borrowed	nsubj:pass
4	like	like	ADP	_	5 that	case
5	that	that	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Dem	3 words	nmod
6	are	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	8 borrowed	aux:pass
7	rarely	rarely	ADV	_	8 borrowed	advmod
8	borrowed	borrow	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	root	root

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	borrow	present · passive		Small everyday words like that				rarely property	vn obtain-13.5.2 «NP V NP»: subject=Theme

Option 3

"They" is a French word

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	"	"	PUNCT	_	2 They	punct
2	They	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	7 word	nsubj
3	"	"	PUNCT	_	2 They	punct
4	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	7 word	cop
5	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	7 word	det
6	French	French	ADJ	Degree=Pos	7 word	amod
7	word	word	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is a	present	They	a French word					tree rules

Option 4 · ← Mova's choice

English had no people in it

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	English	English	PROPN	Number=Sing	2 had	nsubj
2	had	have	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	no	no	DET	PronType=Neg	4 people	det
4	people	people	NOUN	Number=Plur	2 had	obj
5	in	in	ADP	_	6 it	case
6	it	it	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	2 had	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	have	past	English	no people		it			vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent people=Patient

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/23-borrowed-words-french-norse-and-latin/t10/