Test 7 · Airports, the black box, helicopters and drones

What would happen if a helicopter lost its tail rotor?

Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 2 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: helicopter · What happens: happen, lose · To what, where: tail rotor

This is test 7 of lesson 23 «Airports, the black box, helicopters and drones» of the technology 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	_	7 lost	mark
5	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	6 helicopter	det
6	helicopter	helicopter	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 lost	nsubj
7	lost	lose	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 happen	advcl
8	its	its	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	10 rotor	nmod:poss
9	tail	tail	NOUN	Number=Sing	10 rotor	compound
10	rotor	rotor	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 lost	obj
11	?	?	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	lose a condition, not said to happen	past	a helicopter	helicopter's tail rotor					vn succeed-74-3-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent rotor=Eventuality

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

Nothing at all, the tail rotor is only there for decoration and balance

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Nothing	nothing	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Neg	root	root
2	at	at	ADP	_	3 all	case
3	all	all	DET	PronType=Tot	1 Nothing	nmod
4	,	,	PUNCT	_	10 there	punct
5	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	7 rotor	det
6	tail	tail	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 rotor	compound
7	rotor	rotor	NOUN	Number=Sing	10 there	nsubj
8	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	10 there	cop
9	only	only	ADV	_	10 there	advmod
10	there	there	ADV	PronType=Dem	1 Nothing	parataxis
11	for	for	ADP	_	12 decoration	case
12	decoration	decoration	NOUN	Number=Sing	10 there	obl
13	and	and	CCONJ	_	14 balance	cc
14	balance	balance	NOUN	Number=Sing	12 decoration	conj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is	present	the tail rotor					for decoration and balance; there property	tree rules

Option 2 · ✓ the right answer

The body would start spinning round under the main rotor

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	2 body	det
2	body	body	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 start	nsubj
3	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	4 start	aux
4	start	start	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
5	spinning	spin	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	4 start	xcomp
6	round	round	ADV	_	5 spinning	advmod
7	under	under	ADP	_	10 rotor	case
8	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	10 rotor	det
9	main	main	ADJ	Degree=Pos	10 rotor	amod
10	rotor	rotor	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 spinning	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	start	would	the body						vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S_ING»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality
2	spin round	gerund	the body not said here			the main rotor		round property	vn roll-51.3.1 «NP V PP.trajectory»: agent=Theme under rotor=Trajectory

Option 3

It would rise straight up much faster

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	It	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	3 rise	nsubj
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 rise	aux
3	rise	rise	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	straight	straight	ADV	_	5 up	advmod
5	up	up	ADV	_	3 rise	advmod
6	much	much	ADV	_	7 faster	advmod
7	faster	fast	ADV	Degree=Cmp	3 rise	advmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	rise	would	It					fast property	vn assuming_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent

Option 4

It would fly faster forward

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	It	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	3 fly	nsubj
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 fly	aux
3	fly	fly	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	faster	fast	ADV	Degree=Cmp	3 fly	advmod
5	forward	forward	ADV	_	3 fly	advmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	fly	would	It					fast, forward property	vn spatial_configuration-47.6-1 «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/technology/23-airports-black-box-helicopters-drones/t7/