Test 1 · ★ · How babies learn to talk
Your mate goes "babies don't learn nothing till they talk, bruv." What's true?
Mova's choice: option 3 · The right answer: option 3 · right ✓ · Who acts: mate, babies · What happens: go, not learn, talk, be · To what, where: nothing, bruv
This is test 1 · ★ of lesson 31 «How babies learn to talk» 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
Sentence 1: Your mate goes "babies don't learn nothing till they talk, bruv."
The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)
| # | word | lemma | UPOS | features | head | relation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Your | your | PRON | Case=Gen Person=2 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 2 mate | nmod:poss |
| 2 | mate | mate | NOUN | Number=Sing | 3 goes | nsubj |
| 3 | goes | go | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 4 | " | " | PUNCT | _ | 8 learn | punct |
| 5 | babies | baby | NOUN | Number=Plur | 8 learn | nsubj |
| 6 | do | do | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 8 learn | aux |
| 7 | n't | not | PART | Polarity=Neg | 8 learn | advmod |
| 8 | learn | learn | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 3 goes | conj |
| 9 | nothing | nothing | PRON | Number=Sing PronType=Neg | 8 learn | obj |
| 10 | till | till | SCONJ | _ | 12 talk | mark |
| 11 | they | they | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 12 talk | nsubj |
| 12 | talk | talk | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 8 learn | advcl |
| 13 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 14 bruv | punct |
| 14 | bruv | bruv | NOUN | Number=Sing | 12 talk | obl |
| 15 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 3 goes | punct |
| 16 | " | " | PUNCT | _ | 3 goes | punct |
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | go | present | Your mate | vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme | |||||
| 2 | not learn in a quote | present · do-support | babies | nothing | vn learn-14-2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent nothing=Topic | ||||
| 3 | talk in a quote | present | babies = baby | bruv | vn talk-37.5 «NP V»: agent=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.
Sentence 2: What's true?
The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)
| # | word | lemma | UPOS | features | head | relation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | What | what | PRON | PronType=Int | 3 true | nsubj |
| 2 | 's | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 3 true | cop |
| 3 | true | true | ADJ | Degree=Pos | root | root |
| 4 | ? | ? | PUNCT | _ | 3 true | punct |
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | is | present | true property | tree rules |
The options
Option 1
They only learn after age three
The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)
| # | word | lemma | UPOS | features | head | relation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | They | they | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 3 learn | nsubj |
| 2 | only | only | ADV | _ | 3 learn | advmod |
| 3 | learn | learn | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 4 | after | after | ADP | _ | 5 age | case |
| 5 | age | age | NOUN | Number=Sing | 3 learn | obl |
| 6 | three | three | NUM | NumForm=Word NumType=Card | 3 learn | obj |
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | learn | present | They | three | after age | vn learn-14-2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent three=Topic |
Option 2
They only learn from books
The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)
| # | word | lemma | UPOS | features | head | relation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | They | they | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 3 learn | nsubj |
| 2 | only | only | ADV | _ | 3 learn | advmod |
| 3 | learn | learn | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 4 | from | from | ADP | _ | 5 books | case |
| 5 | books | book | NOUN | Number=Plur | 3 learn | obl |
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | learn | present | They | books | vn learn-14-2-1 «NP V PP.source»: agent=Agent from book=Source |
Option 3 · ← Mova's choice · ✓ the right answer
They start learning from before birth
The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)
| # | word | lemma | UPOS | features | head | relation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | They | they | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 2 start | nsubj |
| 2 | start | start | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 3 | learning | learn | VERB | VerbForm=Ger | 2 start | xcomp |
| 4 | from | from | ADP | _ | 6 birth | case |
| 5 | before | before | ADP | _ | 6 birth | case |
| 6 | birth | birth | NOUN | Number=Sing | 3 learning | obl |
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | start | present | They | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S_ING»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality | |||||
| 2 | learn | gerund | They not said here | birth | vn learn-14-2-1 «NP V PP.source»: agent=Agent from birth=Source |
Option 4
He's right, they learn nothing until their first word
The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)
| # | word | lemma | UPOS | features | head | relation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | He | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 3 right | nsubj |
| 2 | 's | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 3 right | cop |
| 3 | right | right | ADJ | Degree=Pos | root | root |
| 4 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 6 learn | punct |
| 5 | they | they | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 6 learn | nsubj |
| 6 | learn | learn | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 3 right | parataxis |
| 7 | nothing | nothing | PRON | Number=Sing PronType=Neg | 6 learn | obj |
| 8 | until | until | ADP | _ | 11 word | case |
| 9 | their | their | PRON | Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 11 word | nmod:poss |
| 10 | first | first | ADJ | Degree=Pos NumForm=Word NumType=Ord | 11 word | amod |
| 11 | word | word | NOUN | Number=Sing | 6 learn | obl |
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | is | present | He | right property | tree rules | ||||
| 2 | learn | present | they | nothing | until their first word | vn learn-14-2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent nothing=Topic | |||
| 3 | word | their = they | nom word «communication transitive»: poss=agent |
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/31-how-babies-learn-to-talk/t1/