Test 4 · Verbs: doing words and being words

What would happen if verbs never agreed with their subjects?

Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 3 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: verbs · What happens: happen, not agree

This is test 4 of lesson 3 «Verbs: doing words and being words» 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	_	7 agreed	mark
5	verbs	verb	NOUN	Number=Plur	7 agreed	nsubj
6	never	never	ADV	PronType=Neg	7 agreed	advmod
7	agreed	agree	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 happen	advcl
8	with	with	ADP	_	10 subjects	case
9	their	their	PRON	Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	10 subjects	nmod:poss
10	subjects	subject	NOUN	Number=Plur	7 agreed	obl
11	?	?	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 agree speech: agree a condition, not said to happen	past	verbs					with verbs's subjects	vn correspond-36.1-1 «NP V PP.co-agent how S»: agent=Agent with subject=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

Nobody could say "I"

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Nobody	nobody	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Neg	3 say	nsubj
2	could	could	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 say	aux
3	say	say	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	"	"	PUNCT	_	5 I	punct
5	I	I	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs	3 say	obj
6	"	"	PUNCT	_	5 I	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	say speech: assert	could	Nobody	I					vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent i=Topic

Option 2

Nothing at all, it would sound exactly the same and mean the same too

The tree, 14 words

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Nothing	nothing	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Neg	7 sound	nsubj
2	at	at	ADP	_	3 all	case
3	all	all	DET	PronType=Tot	1 Nothing	nmod
4	,	,	PUNCT	_	1 Nothing	punct
5	it	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	7 sound	nsubj
6	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	7 sound	aux
7	sound	sound	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
8	exactly	exactly	ADV	_	10 same	advmod
9	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	10 same	det
10	same	same	ADJ	Degree=Pos	7 sound	xcomp
11	and	and	CCONJ	_	12 mean	cc
12	mean	mean	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	7 sound	conj
13	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	14 same	det
14	same	same	ADJ	Degree=Pos	12 mean	obj
15	too	too	ADV	_	12 mean	advmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	sound	would	Nothing					same property	vn stimulus_subject-30.4 «NP V ADJ»: agent=Stimulus
2	mean	present	Nothing not said here	the same					vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent same=Topic

Option 3 · ✓ the right answer

Some sentences would be less clear about how many are doing it

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Some	some	DET	PronType=Ind	2 sentences	det
2	sentences	sentence	NOUN	Number=Plur	6 clear	nsubj
3	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	6 clear	aux
4	be	be	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	6 clear	cop
5	less	less	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	6 clear	amod
6	clear	clear	ADJ	Degree=Pos	root	root
7	about	about	SCONJ	_	11 doing	mark
8	how	how	ADV	PronType=Int	9 many	advmod
9	many	many	ADJ	Degree=Pos	11 doing	nsubj
10	are	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	11 doing	aux
11	doing	do	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	6 clear	advcl
12	it	it	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	11 doing	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is	would	some sentences					clear property	tree rules
2	do	present · progressive	many	it					vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Eventuality

Option 4

All verbs would end in -ing

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	All	all	DET	PronType=Tot	2 verbs	det
2	verbs	verb	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 end	nsubj
3	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	4 end	aux
4	end	end	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
5	in	in	ADP	_	7 ing	case
6	-	-	PUNCT	_	5 in	punct
7	ing	ing	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 end	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	end	would	all verbs			ing			vn stop-55.4-1-1 «NP.eventuality V»: agent=Eventuality

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/3-verbs-doing-words-and-being-words/t4/