Test 5 · Borrowed words from far away: Hindi, Arabic, Chinese, Ukra…

What would happen if English had never met Arabic?

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

This is test 5 of lesson 24 «Borrowed words from far away: Hindi, Arabic, Chinese, Ukrainian and more» 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 met	mark
5	English	English	PROPN	Number=Sing	8 met	nsubj
6	had	have	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	8 met	aux
7	never	never	ADV	PronType=Neg	8 met	advmod
8	met	meet	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part	3 happen	advcl
9	Arabic	Arabic	PROPN	Number=Sing	8 met	obj
10	?	?	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 meet a condition, not said to happen	past · perfect	English	Arabic					vn meet-36.3-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent arabic=Co-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.

The options

Option 1 · ← Mova's choice

It would have no numbers at all, not even one, two and three

The tree, 13 words

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	It	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	3 have	nsubj
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 have	aux
3	have	have	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	no	no	DET	PronType=Neg	5 numbers	det
5	numbers	number	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 have	obj
6	at	at	ADP	_	7 all	case
7	all	all	DET	PronType=Tot	3 have	obl
8	,	,	PUNCT	_	11 one	punct
9	not	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	11 one	advmod
10	even	even	ADV	_	11 one	advmod
11	one	one	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	3 have	parataxis
12	,	,	PUNCT	_	13 two	punct
13	two	two	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	11 one	conj
14	and	and	CCONJ	_	15 three	cc
15	three	three	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	11 one	conj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	have	would	It	no numbers		all			vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent number=Patient

Option 2

It would have no food words

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	It	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	3 have	nsubj
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 have	aux
3	have	have	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	no	no	DET	PronType=Neg	6 words	det
5	food	food	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 words	compound
6	words	word	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 have	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	have	would	It	no food words					vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent word=Patient

Option 3

Nothing 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	3 change	nsubj
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 change	aux
3	change	change	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	in	in	ADP	_	5 English	case
5	English	English	PROPN	Number=Sing	3 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 4 · ✓ the right answer

It might lack words like "coffee", "sugar" and "algebra"

The tree, 9 words

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	It	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	3 lack	nsubj
2	might	might	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 lack	aux
3	lack	lack	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	words	word	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 lack	obj
5	like	like	ADP	_	7 coffee	case
6	"	"	PUNCT	_	7 coffee	punct
7	coffee	coffee	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 words	nmod
8	"	"	PUNCT	_	7 coffee	punct
9	,	,	PUNCT	_	11 sugar	punct
10	"	"	PUNCT	_	11 sugar	punct
11	sugar	sugar	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 coffee	appos
12	"	"	PUNCT	_	11 sugar	punct
13	and	and	CCONJ	_	15 algebra	cc
14	"	"	PUNCT	_	15 algebra	punct
15	algebra	algebra	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 coffee	conj
16	"	"	PUNCT	_	15 algebra	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	lack	might	It	words				like coffee and algebra	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/24-borrowed-words-from-far-away/t5/