Exam question 1 · Clever reasoning about water and matter

Identify the principal reason for which ice floats upon liquid water.

Mova's choice: option 3 · The right answer: option 3 · right ✓ · Who acts: you, ice · What happens: identify, float · To what, where: principal reason, liquid water

This is exam question 1 of lesson 20 «Clever reasoning about water and matter» of the world 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	Identify	identify	VERB	Mood=Imp VerbForm=Fin	root	root
2	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	4 reason	det
3	principal	principal	ADJ	Degree=Pos	4 reason	amod
4	reason	reason	NOUN	Number=Sing	1 Identify	obj
5	for	for	ADP	_	6 which	case
6	which	which	PRON	PronType=Rel	8 floats	obl
7	ice	ice	NOUN	Number=Sing	8 floats	nsubj
8	floats	float	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	4 reason	acl
9	upon	upon	ADP	_	11 water	case
10	liquid	liquid	ADJ	Degree=Pos	11 water	amod
11	water	water	NOUN	Number=Sing	8 floats	obl
12	.	.	PUNCT	_	1 Identify	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	identify	imperative	you not said here	the principal reason					vn characterize-29.2-1-1 «NP V NP S_ING»: agent=Agent reason=Theme
2	float	present	ice			liquid water		for the principal reason	vn run-51.3.2-2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme upon water=Trajectory

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

Ice contains trapped air and nothing else

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Ice	ice	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 contains	nsubj
2	contains	contain	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	trapped	trap	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	4 air	amod
4	air	air	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 contains	obj
5	and	and	CCONJ	_	6 nothing	cc
6	nothing	nothing	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Neg	4 air	conj
7	else	else	ADV	_	6 nothing	advmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	contain	present	Ice	trapped air					vn comprise-107.2-2 «NP V NP»: agent=Pivot air=Theme
2	trap	participle							vn trick-59.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent

Option 2

Ice is warmer than the liquid water beneath

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Ice	ice	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 warmer	nsubj
2	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	3 warmer	cop
3	warmer	warm	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	root	root
4	than	than	ADP	_	7 water	case
5	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	7 water	det
6	liquid	liquid	ADJ	Degree=Pos	7 water	amod
7	water	water	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 warmer	obl
8	beneath	beneath	ADV	_	3 warmer	advmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is	present	Ice					than the liquid water; beneath, warm property	tree rules

Option 3 · ← Mova's choice · ✓ the right answer

Ice is less dense than liquid water

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Ice	ice	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 dense	nsubj
2	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	4 dense	cop
3	less	less	ADV	Degree=Cmp	4 dense	advmod
4	dense	dense	ADJ	Degree=Pos	root	root
5	than	than	ADP	_	7 water	case
6	liquid	liquid	ADJ	Degree=Pos	7 water	amod
7	water	water	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 dense	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is	present	Ice					than liquid water; dense, less property	tree rules

Option 4

Ice is heavier than the liquid water below it

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Ice	ice	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 heavier	nsubj
2	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	3 heavier	cop
3	heavier	heavy	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	root	root
4	than	than	ADP	_	7 water	case
5	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	7 water	det
6	liquid	liquid	ADJ	Degree=Pos	7 water	amod
7	water	water	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 heavier	obl
8	below	below	ADP	_	9 it	case
9	it	it	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	7 water	nmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is	present	Ice					than the liquid water below water; heavy property	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/world/20-reasoning-water-and-matter/e1/