Test 11 · ★★ · Pretend, cover stories and lies that become habits

Why do cover stories for harmless things make no sense?

Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 1 · right ✓ · Who acts: harmless things · What happens: cover, make · To what, where: stories, sense

This is test 11 · ★★ of lesson 85 «Pretend, cover stories and lies that become habits» of the religion ethics 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	Why	why	ADV	PronType=Int	3 cover	advmod
2	do	do	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	3 cover	aux
3	cover	cover	VERB	Mood=Imp VerbForm=Fin	root	root
4	stories	story	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 cover	obj
5	for	for	SCONJ	_	8 make	mark
6	harmless	harmless	ADJ	Degree=Pos	7 things	amod
7	things	thing	NOUN	Number=Plur	8 make	nsubj
8	make	make	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	3 cover	advcl
9	no	no	DET	PronType=Neg	10 sense	det
10	sense	sense	NOUN	Number=Sing	8 make	obj
11	?	?	PUNCT	_	3 cover	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	cover	present · do-support		stories					vn fill-9.8-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme story=Destination
2	make	present	harmless things	no sense					vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset sense=Product

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

If the truth is harmless, telling it costs nothing, and the lie risks trust

The tree, 14 words

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	If	if	SCONJ	_	5 harmless	mark
2	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	3 truth	det
3	truth	truth	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 harmless	nsubj
4	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	5 harmless	cop
5	harmless	harmless	ADJ	Degree=Pos	9 costs	advcl
6	,	,	PUNCT	_	5 harmless	punct
7	telling	tell	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	9 costs	csubj
8	it	it	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	7 telling	obj
9	costs	cost	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
10	nothing	nothing	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Neg	9 costs	obj
11	,	,	PUNCT	_	15 risks	punct
12	and	and	CCONJ	_	15 risks	cc
13	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	14 lie	det
14	lie	lie	NOUN	Number=Sing	15 risks	nsubj
15	risks	risk	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	9 costs	conj
16	trust	trust	NOUN	Number=Sing	15 risks	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	other	roles by
1	is a condition, not said to happen	present	the truth			harmless property	tree rules
2	tell speech: assert	gerund			truth		vn transfer_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent it=Recipient
3	cost	present	telling	nothing			vn cost-54.2 «NP V NP.value»: agent=Theme nothing=Value
4	risk	present	the lie	trust			vn risk-94-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent trust=Pivot

Option 2

Because cover stories always work perfectly

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Because	because	SCONJ	_	5 work	mark
2	cover	cover	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 stories	compound
3	stories	story	NOUN	Number=Plur	5 work	nsubj
4	always	always	ADV	PronType=Tot	5 work	advmod
5	work	work	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
6	perfectly	perfectly	ADV	_	5 work	advmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	work	present	cover stories					always, perfectly property	vn employment-95.3 «NP V»: agent=Agent

Option 3

Because Mum always prefers a story

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Because	because	SCONJ	_	4 prefers	mark
2	Mum	mum	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 prefers	nsubj
3	always	always	ADV	PronType=Tot	4 prefers	advmod
4	prefers	prefer	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
5	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	6 story	det
6	story	story	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 prefers	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	prefer	present	Mum	a story				always property	vn admire-31.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer story=Stimulus

Option 4

Because skate parks are always banned

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Because	because	SCONJ	_	6 banned	mark
2	skate	skate	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 parks	compound
3	parks	park	NOUN	Number=Plur	6 banned	nsubj:pass
4	are	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	6 banned	aux:pass
5	always	always	ADV	PronType=Tot	6 banned	advmod
6	banned	ban	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	root	root

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	ban	present · passive		skate parks				always property	vn forbid-64.4-1 «NP V NP»: subject=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/religion-ethics/85-pretend-cover-stories-and-lies-that-become-habits/t11/