Test 5 · ★ · The news: who makes it and how

What would happen if every channel only showed bad news and never mentioned ordinary good things?

Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 2 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: channel · What happens: happen, show, not mention · To what, where: bad news, ordinary good things

This is test 5 · ★ of lesson 10 «The news: who makes it and how» of the politics 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	_	8 showed	mark
5	every	every	DET	PronType=Tot	6 channel	det
6	channel	channel	NOUN	Number=Sing	8 showed	nsubj
7	only	only	ADV	_	8 showed	advmod
8	showed	show	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 happen	advcl
9	bad	bad	ADJ	Degree=Pos	10 news	amod
10	news	news	NOUN	Number=Sing	8 showed	obj
11	and	and	CCONJ	_	13 mentioned	cc
12	never	never	ADV	PronType=Neg	13 mentioned	advmod
13	mentioned	mention	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	8 showed	conj
14	ordinary	ordinary	ADJ	Degree=Pos	16 things	amod
15	good	good	ADJ	Degree=Pos	16 things	amod
16	things	thing	NOUN	Number=Plur	13 mentioned	obj
17	?	?	PUNCT	_	3 happen	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	roles by
1	happen	would			vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
2	show a condition, not said to happen	past	every channel	bad news	vn transfer_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent news=Recipient
3	not mention speech: other	past	every channel not said here	ordinary good things	vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent thing=Topic

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

People would know exactly how often bad things happen in the world, day by day

The tree, 15 words

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	People	people	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 know	nsubj
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 know	aux
3	know	know	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	exactly	exactly	ADV	_	5 how	advmod
5	how	how	ADV	PronType=Int	6 often	advmod
6	often	often	ADV	_	9 happen	advmod
7	bad	bad	ADJ	Degree=Pos	8 things	amod
8	things	thing	NOUN	Number=Plur	9 happen	nsubj
9	happen	happen	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	3 know	ccomp
10	in	in	ADP	_	12 world	case
11	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	12 world	det
12	world	world	NOUN	Number=Sing	9 happen	obl
13	,	,	PUNCT	_	14 day	punct
14	day	day	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 know	obl
15	by	by	ADP	_	16 day	case
16	day	day	NOUN	Number=Sing	14 day	nmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	know	would	People				day		vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V S_ING»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus
2	happen	present	bad things			the world		often property	vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V PP»: agent=Theme in world=Location

Option 2 · ✓ the right answer

People might think the world is more dangerous than it is

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	People	people	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 think	nsubj
2	might	might	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 think	aux
3	think	think	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	5 world	det
5	world	world	NOUN	Number=Sing	8 dangerous	nsubj
6	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	8 dangerous	cop
7	more	more	ADV	Degree=Cmp	8 dangerous	advmod
8	dangerous	dangerous	ADJ	Degree=Pos	3 think	ccomp
9	than	than	ADP	_	10 it	case
10	it	it	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	8 dangerous	obl
11	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	8 dangerous	cop

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	think speech: other	might	People						vn focus-87.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent
2	is	present	the world					than it; dangerous property	tree rules

Option 3

Good things would stop happening too

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Good	good	ADJ	Degree=Pos	2 things	amod
2	things	thing	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 stop	nsubj
3	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	4 stop	aux
4	stop	stop	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
5	happening	happen	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	4 stop	xcomp
6	too	too	ADV	_	5 happening	advmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	stop	would	Good things						vn stop-55.4-1-1 «NP V S_ING»: agent=Affector clause=Eventuality
2	happen	gerund	Good things not said here						vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme

Option 4

Bad things would stop happening

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Bad	bad	ADJ	Degree=Pos	2 things	amod
2	things	thing	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 stop	nsubj
3	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	4 stop	aux
4	stop	stop	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
5	happening	happen	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	4 stop	xcomp

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	stop	would	Bad things						vn stop-55.4-1-1 «NP V S_ING»: agent=Affector clause=Eventuality
2	happen	gerund	Bad things 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/politics/10-the-news-who-makes-it-and-how/t5/