Exam question 3 · Honest with yourself: admitting you were wrong

Select the statement consistent with the view attributed to Aristotle concerning truthfulness about oneself.

Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 4 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: you, Aristotle · What happens: select, attribute, concern · To what, where: statement, view, truthfulness

This is exam question 3 of lesson 97 «Honest with yourself: admitting you were wrong» of the religion ethics 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	Select	select	VERB	Mood=Imp VerbForm=Fin	root	root
2	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	3 statement	det
3	statement	statement	NOUN	Number=Sing	1 Select	obj
4	consistent	consistent	ADJ	Degree=Pos	1 Select	xcomp
5	with	with	ADP	_	7 view	case
6	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	7 view	det
7	view	view	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 consistent	obl
8	attributed	attribute	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	7 view	acl
9	to	to	ADP	_	10 Aristotle	case
10	Aristotle	Aristotle	PROPN	Number=Sing	8 attributed	obl:agent
11	concerning	concern	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	10 Aristotle	acl
12	truthfulness	truthfulness	NOUN	Number=Sing	11 concerning	obj
13	about	about	ADP	_	14 oneself	case
14	oneself	oneself	PRON	PronType=Prs Reflex=Yes	12 truthfulness	nmod
15	.	.	PUNCT	_	1 Select	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	other	roles by
1	select	imperative	you not said here	the statement	consistent property	vn obtain-13.5.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent statement=Theme
2	attribute	participle		the view not said here		tree rules
3	concern	gerund	Aristotle not said here	truthfulness	about oneself	vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Stimulus truthfulness=Experiencer

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

Truthfulness concerning oneself is impossible to attain

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Truthfulness	truthfulness	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 impossible	nsubj
2	concerning	concern	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	1 Truthfulness	acl
3	oneself	oneself	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 concerning	obj
4	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	5 impossible	cop
5	impossible	impossible	ADJ	Degree=Pos	root	root
6	to	to	PART	_	7 attain	mark
7	attain	attain	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	5 impossible	xcomp

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	other	roles by
1	concern	gerund	Truthfulness not said here	oneself		vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Stimulus oneself=Experiencer
2	is	present	Truthfulness		impossible property	tree rules
3	attain	to-infinitive	Truthfulness not said here			vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent

Option 2

The truthful person consistently overstates his own merits

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	3 person	det
2	truthful	truthful	ADJ	Degree=Pos	3 person	amod
3	person	person	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 overstates	nsubj
4	consistently	consistently	ADV	_	5 overstates	advmod
5	overstates	overstate	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
6	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	8 merits	nmod:poss
7	own	own	ADJ	Degree=Pos	8 merits	amod
8	merits	merit	NOUN	Number=Plur	5 overstates	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	overstate speech: other	present	the truthful person	person's own merits				consistently property	vn overstate-37.12 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent merit=Theme

Option 3

The truthful person consistently understates his own merits, from modesty

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	3 person	det
2	truthful	truthful	ADJ	Degree=Pos	3 person	amod
3	person	person	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 understates	nsubj
4	consistently	consistently	ADV	_	5 understates	advmod
5	understates	understate	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
6	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	8 merits	nmod:poss
7	own	own	ADJ	Degree=Pos	8 merits	amod
8	merits	merit	NOUN	Number=Plur	5 understates	obj
9	,	,	PUNCT	_	11 modesty	punct
10	from	from	ADP	_	11 modesty	case
11	modesty	modesty	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 understates	conj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	understate	present	the truthful person	person's own merits				consistently property	tree rules

Option 4 · ✓ the right answer

The truthful person neither overstates nor understates his own merits

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	3 person	det
2	truthful	truthful	ADJ	Degree=Pos	3 person	amod
3	person	person	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 overstates	nsubj
4	neither	neither	ADV	_	5 overstates	advmod
5	overstates	overstate	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
6	nor	nor	CCONJ	Polarity=Neg	7 understates	cc
7	understates	understate	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	5 overstates	conj
8	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	10 merits	nmod:poss
9	own	own	ADJ	Degree=Pos	10 merits	amod
10	merits	merit	NOUN	Number=Plur	7 understates	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	overstate speech: other	present	the truthful person					neither property	vn overstate-37.12 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent
2	understate	present	the truthful person not said here	person's own merits					tree rules

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/97-honest-with-yourself-admitting-you-were-wrong/e3/