Test 2 · ★ · Food chains and food webs

Why would a forest floor be covered with mountains of dead leaves if there were no decomposers?

Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 1 · right ✓ · Who acts: decomposers · What happens: cover, be · To what, where: forest floor

This is test 2 · ★ of lesson 26 «Food chains and food webs» of the world 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	7 covered	advmod
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	7 covered	aux
3	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	5 floor	det
4	forest	forest	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 floor	compound
5	floor	floor	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 covered	nsubj:pass
6	be	be	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	7 covered	aux:pass
7	covered	cover	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	root	root
8	with	with	ADP	_	9 mountains	case
9	mountains	mountain	NOUN	Number=Plur	7 covered	obl
10	of	of	ADP	_	12 leaves	case
11	dead	dead	ADJ	Degree=Pos	12 leaves	amod
12	leaves	leaf	NOUN	Number=Plur	9 mountains	nmod
13	if	if	SCONJ	_	15 were	mark
14	there	there	PRON	PronType=Dem	15 were	expl
15	were	be	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	7 covered	conj
16	no	no	DET	PronType=Neg	17 decomposers	det
17	decomposers	decomposer	NOUN	Number=Plur	15 were	nsubj
18	?	?	PUNCT	_	7 covered	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	cover	would · passive		a forest floor				with mountains of dead leaves	vn fill-9.8-1 «NP V NP PP.theme»: subject=Destination with mountain=Theme
2	be a condition, not said to happen	past	no decomposers			there			vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme

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

Nothing would break the leaves down

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Nothing	nothing	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Neg	3 break	nsubj
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 break	aux
3	break	break	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	5 leaves	det
5	leaves	leaf	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 break	obj
6	down	down	ADV	_	3 break	advmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	break down	would	Nothing	the leaves				down property	vn break-45.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent leaf=Patient

Option 2

Animals would eat all the leaves

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Animals	animal	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 eat	nsubj
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 eat	aux
3	eat	eat	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	all	all	DET	PronType=Tot	6 leaves	det:predet
5	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	6 leaves	det
6	leaves	leaf	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 eat	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	eat	would	Animals	all leaves					vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent leaf=Patient

Option 3

Leaves would turn back into trees

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Leaves	leaf	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 turn	nsubj
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 turn	aux
3	turn	turn	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	back	back	ADV	_	3 turn	advmod
5	into	into	ADP	_	6 trees	case
6	trees	tree	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 turn	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	turn back	would	Leaves			trees			vn banish-10.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent

Option 4

Trees would stop dropping leaves

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Trees	tree	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 stop	nsubj
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 stop	aux
3	stop	stop	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	dropping	drop	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	3 stop	xcomp
5	leaves	leaf	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 dropping	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	stop	would	Trees						vn stop-55.4-1-1 «NP V S_ING»: agent=Affector clause=Eventuality
2	drop	gerund	Trees not said here	leaves					vn put_direction-9.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent leaf=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/world/26-food-chains-and-webs/t2/