Test 7 · Adjectives and adverbs: describing things and actions

What would happen if English had no adverbs?

Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 3 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: English · What happens: happen, have · To what, where: adverbs

This is test 7 of lesson 4 «Adjectives and adverbs: describing things and actions» 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	_	6 had	mark
5	English	English	PROPN	Number=Sing	6 had	nsubj
6	had	have	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 happen	advcl
7	no	no	DET	PronType=Neg	8 adverbs	det
8	adverbs	adverb	NOUN	Number=Plur	6 had	obj
9	?	?	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	have a condition, not said to happen	past	English	no adverbs					vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent adverb=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

Nothing, nouns would simply do the same job as adverbs

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Nothing	nothing	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Neg	3 nouns	compound
2	,	,	PUNCT	_	1 Nothing	punct
3	nouns	noun	NOUN	Number=Plur	6 do	nsubj
4	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	6 do	aux
5	simply	simply	ADV	_	6 do	advmod
6	do	do	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
7	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	9 job	det
8	same	same	ADJ	Degree=Pos	9 job	amod
9	job	job	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 do	obj
10	as	as	ADP	_	11 adverbs	case
11	adverbs	adverb	NOUN	Number=Plur	6 do	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	do	would	Nothing nouns	the same job				as adverbs; simply property	vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent job=Eventuality

Option 2

All verbs would disappear too

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 disappear	nsubj
3	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	4 disappear	aux
4	disappear	disappear	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
5	too	too	ADV	_	4 disappear	advmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	disappear	would	all verbs						vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme

Option 3 · ✓ the right answer

You couldn't easily say how, when or where things happened

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	You	you	PRON	Case=Nom Person=2 PronType=Prs	5 say	nsubj
2	could	could	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	5 say	aux
3	n't	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	5 say	advmod
4	easily	easily	ADV	_	5 say	advmod
5	say	say	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
6	how	how	ADV	PronType=Int	5 say	advmod
7	,	,	PUNCT	_	8 when	punct
8	when	when	ADV	PronType=Int	5 say	ccomp
9	or	or	CCONJ	_	12 happened	cc
10	where	where	ADV	PronType=Rel	12 happened	advmod
11	things	thing	NOUN	Number=Plur	12 happened	nsubj
12	happened	happen	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	8 when	conj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	not say speech: assert	could	You					easily property	vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent
2	happen	past	things						vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme

Option 4

Sentences would have to be questions

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Sentences	sentence	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 have	nsubj
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 have	aux
3	have	have	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	to	to	PART	_	6 questions	mark
5	be	be	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	6 questions	cop
6	questions	question	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 have	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	have	would	Sentences						vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent
2	is a	to-infinitive		questions					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/4-adjectives-and-adverbs/t7/