Exam question 4 · Words that changed their meaning

Ascertain the original meaning of the Old English verb "steorfan", from which "starve" derives.

Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 4 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: you · What happens: ascertain, starve, derive, mean · To what, where: original meaning, Old English verb · Speech: someone speaks here

This is exam question 4 of lesson 38 «Words that changed their meaning» of the language course of Mova's primary school, asked in stiff, formal language. 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	Ascertain	ascertain	VERB	Mood=Imp VerbForm=Fin	root	root
2	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	4 meaning	det
3	original	original	ADJ	Degree=Pos	4 meaning	amod
4	meaning	meaning	NOUN	Number=Sing	1 Ascertain	obj
5	of	of	ADP	_	9 verb	case
6	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	9 verb	det
7	Old	old	ADJ	Degree=Pos	9 verb	amod
8	English	English	PROPN	Number=Sing	9 verb	compound
9	verb	verb	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 meaning	nmod
10	"	"	PUNCT	_	11 steorfan	punct
11	steorfan	steorfan	NOUN	Number=Sing	9 verb	appos
12	"	"	PUNCT	_	11 steorfan	punct
13	,	,	PUNCT	_	17 starve	punct
14	from	from	ADP	_	15 which	case
15	which	which	PRON	PronType=Rel	17 starve	obl
16	"	"	PUNCT	_	17 starve	punct
17	starve	starve	VERB	Mood=Imp VerbForm=Fin	1 Ascertain	parataxis
18	"	"	PUNCT	_	19 derives	punct
19	derives	derive	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	17 starve	ccomp
20	.	.	PUNCT	_	1 Ascertain	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	roles by
1	ascertain	imperative	you not said here	the original meaning of the Old English verb	tree rules
2	starve in a quote	infinitive			tree rules
3	derive	present			vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
4	mean			the Old English verb	nom meaning «communication transitive»: of=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

To cook

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	To	to	PART	_	2 cook	mark
2	cook	cook	VERB	Mood=Imp VerbForm=Fin	root	root

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	cook	to-infinitive							vn cooking-45.3 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient

Option 2

To be hungry

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	To	to	PART	_	3 hungry	mark
2	be	be	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	3 hungry	cop
3	hungry	hungry	ADJ	Degree=Pos	root	root

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is	to-infinitive						hungry property	tree rules

Option 3

To eat greedily

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	To	to	PART	_	2 eat	mark
2	eat	eat	VERB	Mood=Imp VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	greedily	greedily	ADV	_	2 eat	advmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	eat	to-infinitive						greedily property	vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent

Option 4 · ✓ the right answer

To die

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	To	to	PART	_	2 die	mark
2	die	die	VERB	Mood=Imp VerbForm=Fin	root	root

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	die	to-infinitive							vn calibratable_cos-45.6.1 «NP.attribute V»: agent=Attribute

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/38-words-that-changed-their-meaning/e4/