Test 4 · ★ · Off with her head and the finest house on the river: Alice…

★ «Rat says nothing is as good as messing about in boats, so school is pointless» What has gone wrong?

Mova's choice: option 2 · The right answer: option 1 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: ★, nothing, school, pointless · What happens: say, be, mess, go · Speech: someone speaks here

This is test 4 · ★ of lesson 54 «Off with her head and the finest house on the river: Alice and Toad» 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	★	★	PROPN	Number=Sing	4 says	nsubj
2	«	«	PUNCT	_	4 says	punct
3	Rat	Rat	PROPN	Number=Sing	4 says	nsubj
4	says	say	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
5	nothing	nothing	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Neg	8 good	nsubj
6	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	8 good	cop
7	as	as	ADV	_	8 good	advmod
8	good	good	ADJ	Degree=Pos	4 says	ccomp
9	as	as	SCONJ	_	10 messing	mark
10	messing	mess	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	8 good	advcl
11	about	about	ADP	_	13 boats	case
12	in	in	ADP	_	13 boats	case
13	boats	boat	NOUN	Number=Plur	10 messing	obl
14	,	,	PUNCT	_	18 pointless	punct
15	so	so	ADV	_	18 pointless	advmod
16	school	school	NOUN	Number=Sing	18 pointless	nsubj
17	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	18 pointless	cop
18	pointless	pointless	ADJ	Degree=Pos	22 gone	nsubj
19	»	»	PUNCT	_	18 pointless	punct
20	What	what	PRON	PronType=Int	22 gone	nsubj
21	has	have	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	22 gone	aux
22	gone	go	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part	4 says	ccomp
23	wrong	wrong	ADJ	Degree=Pos	22 gone	xcomp
24	?	?	PUNCT	_	4 says	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	other	roles by
1	say speech: assert in a quote	present	★		vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic
2	is in a quote	present	nothing	good property	tree rules
3	mess in a quote	gerund	nothing not said here	about boats	tree rules
4	is in a quote	present	school	pointless property	tree rules
5	go	present · perfect	pointless	wrong property	vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme

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 · ✓ the right answer

Rat was lovingly exaggerating about what he enjoys most

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Rat	Rat	PROPN	Number=Sing	3 lovingly	nsubj
2	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 lovingly	cop
3	lovingly	lovingly	ADJ	Degree=Pos	root	root
4	exaggerating	exaggerate	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	3 lovingly	advcl
5	about	about	ADP	_	6 what	case
6	what	what	PRON	PronType=Rel	4 exaggerating	obl
7	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	8 enjoys	nsubj
8	enjoys	enjoy	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	6 what	acl:relcl
9	most	most	ADJ	Degree=Sup	3 lovingly	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	other	roles by
1	is	past	Rat	most obl; lovingly property	tree rules
2	exaggerate	gerund	Rat not said here		tree rules
3	enjoy	present	Rat		vn admire-31.2 «NP V that S»: agent=Experiencer

Option 2 · ← Mova's choice

Rat said that school is good, but that boats are even better

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Rat	Rat	PROPN	Number=Sing	2 said	nsubj
2	said	say	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	that	that	SCONJ	_	6 good	mark
4	school	school	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 good	nsubj
5	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	6 good	cop
6	good	good	ADJ	Degree=Pos	2 said	ccomp
7	,	,	PUNCT	_	13 better	punct
8	but	but	CCONJ	_	13 better	cc
9	that	that	DET	Number=Sing PronType=Dem	10 boats	det
10	boats	boat	NOUN	Number=Plur	13 better	nsubj
11	are	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	13 better	cop
12	even	even	ADV	_	13 better	advmod
13	better	good	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	2 said	parataxis

#	verb	tense, mood	who	other	roles by
1	say speech: assert	past	Rat		vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent
2	is	present	school	good property	tree rules
3	is	present	that boats	good property	tree rules

Option 3

Rat was being sarcastic about boats

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Rat	Rat	PROPN	Number=Sing	4 sarcastic	nsubj
2	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	4 sarcastic	cop
3	being	be	AUX	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	4 sarcastic	cop
4	sarcastic	sarcastic	ADJ	Degree=Pos	root	root
5	about	about	ADP	_	6 boats	case
6	boats	boat	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 sarcastic	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is	past	Rat					about boats; sarcastic property	tree rules

Option 4

Rat is right, and boats are the only thing worth doing

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Rat	Rat	PROPN	Number=Sing	3 right	nsubj
2	is	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	_	10 thing	punct
5	and	and	CCONJ	_	10 thing	cc
6	boats	boat	NOUN	Number=Plur	10 thing	nsubj
7	are	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	10 thing	cop
8	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	10 thing	det
9	only	only	ADJ	Degree=Pos	10 thing	amod
10	thing	thing	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 right	parataxis
11	worth	worth	ADJ	Degree=Pos	10 thing	amod
12	doing	do	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	11 worth	xcomp

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	other	roles by
1	is	present	Rat		right property	tree rules
2	is a	present	boats	the only thing		tree rules
3	do	gerund	boats not said here			vn act-114-1 «NP V»: 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/54-off-with-her-head-and-the-finest-house-on-the-river-alice-and-toad/t4/