Exam question 4 · Kipling's word games: «Best Beloved», the 'Stute Fish, «Hu…

Ascertain the meaning of the expression «a month of Sundays».

Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 1 · right ✓ · Who acts: you · What happens: ascertain, mean · To what, where: meaning, expression

This is exam question 4 of lesson 42 «Kipling's word games: «Best Beloved», the 'Stute Fish, «Humph!» and the great grey-green, greasy Limpopo» 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	3 meaning	det
3	meaning	meaning	NOUN	Number=Sing	1 Ascertain	obj
4	of	of	ADP	_	6 expression	case
5	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	6 expression	det
6	expression	expression	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 meaning	nmod
7	«	«	PUNCT	_	9 month	punct
8	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	9 month	det
9	month	month	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 expression	appos
10	of	of	ADP	_	11 Sundays	case
11	Sundays	Sunday	PROPN	Number=Plur	9 month	nmod
12	»	»	PUNCT	_	9 month	punct
13	.	.	PUNCT	_	1 Ascertain	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	ascertain	imperative	you not said here	the meaning of the expression					vn discover-84 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent meaning=Topic
2	mean			the expression					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 · ✓ the right answer

A very long period of time

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	A	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	4 period	det
2	very	very	ADV	_	3 long	advmod
3	long	long	ADJ	Degree=Pos	4 period	amod
4	period	period	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root
5	of	of	ADP	_	6 time	case
6	time	time	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 period	nmod

The frames reader finds no event or fact in this sentence.

Option 2

A month without any working days

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	A	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	2 month	det
2	month	month	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root
3	without	without	ADP	_	6 days	case
4	any	any	DET	PronType=Ind	6 days	det
5	working	working	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 days	compound
6	days	day	NOUN	Number=Plur	2 month	nmod

The frames reader finds no event or fact in this sentence.

Option 3

A period of exactly four weeks

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	A	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	2 period	det
2	period	period	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root
3	of	of	ADP	_	6 weeks	case
4	exactly	exactly	ADV	_	5 four	advmod
5	four	four	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	6 weeks	nummod
6	weeks	week	NOUN	Number=Plur	2 period	nmod

The frames reader finds no event or fact in this sentence.

Option 4

A holiday taken on Sundays

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	A	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	2 holiday	det
2	holiday	holiday	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root
3	taken	take	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	2 holiday	acl
4	on	on	ADP	_	5 Sundays	case
5	Sundays	Sunday	PROPN	Number=Plur	3 taken	obl:agent

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	take	participle		a holiday not said here			sunday		vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP»: agent=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/42-kipling-s-word-games-best-beloved-stute-fish-humph-and-the-great-grey-green-greasy-limpopo/e4/