Test 3 · ★★ · Tenses: past, present and future

What would happen if English had no tenses or time words?

Mova's choice: option 4 · The right answer: option 4 · right ✓ · Who acts: English · What happens: happen, have · To what, where: tenses

This is test 3 · ★★ of lesson 8 «Tenses: past, present and future» 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 tenses	det
8	tenses	tense	NOUN	Number=Plur	6 had	obj
9	or	or	CCONJ	_	11 words	cc
10	time	time	NOUN	Number=Sing	11 words	compound
11	words	word	NOUN	Number=Plur	8 tenses	conj
12	?	?	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 tenses or time words					vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent tense=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

Only questions would make sense

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Only	only	ADV	_	2 questions	advmod
2	questions	question	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 make	nsubj
3	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	4 make	aux
4	make	make	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
5	sense	sense	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 make	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	make	would	questions	sense					vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset sense=Product

Option 2

All stories would be in the future

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	All	all	DET	PronType=Tot	2 stories	det
2	stories	story	NOUN	Number=Plur	7 future	nsubj
3	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	7 future	aux
4	be	be	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	7 future	cop
5	in	in	ADP	_	7 future	case
6	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	7 future	det
7	future	future	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is	would	all stories			the future			tree rules

Option 3

Nothing, verbs never show time

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Nothing	nothing	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Neg	3 verbs	compound
2	,	,	PUNCT	_	1 Nothing	punct
3	verbs	verb	NOUN	Number=Plur	5 show	nsubj
4	never	never	ADV	PronType=Neg	5 show	advmod
5	show	show	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
6	time	time	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 show	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	not show	present	Nothing verbs				time		vn transfer_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent

Option 4 · ← Mova's choice · ✓ the right answer

You couldn't easily tell if something happened, is happening or will happen

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	You	you	PRON	Case=Nom Person=2 PronType=Prs	5 tell	nsubj
2	could	could	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	5 tell	aux
3	n't	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	5 tell	advmod
4	easily	easily	ADV	_	5 tell	advmod
5	tell	tell	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
6	if	if	SCONJ	_	8 happened	mark
7	something	something	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Ind	8 happened	nsubj
8	happened	happen	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	5 tell	ccomp
9	,	,	PUNCT	_	11 happening	punct
10	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	11 happening	aux
11	happening	happen	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	5 tell	conj
12	or	or	CCONJ	_	14 happen	cc
13	will	will	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	14 happen	aux
14	happen	happen	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	5 tell	conj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	other	roles by
1	not tell speech: assert	could	You	easily property	vn transfer_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic
2	happen a condition, not said to happen	past	something		vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
3	happen	present · progressive	You not said here		vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
4	happen	future	You not said here		vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme

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/8-tenses-past-present-future/t3/