Test 4 · ★★★ · Balance in a food web

Why is it impossible to have a habitat with more lions than zebras for long?

Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 3 · wrong ✗ · What happens: be, have · To what, where: habitat

This is test 4 · ★★★ of lesson 30 «Balance in a food web» 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	4 impossible	advmod
2	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	4 impossible	cop
3	it	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	4 impossible	expl
4	impossible	impossible	ADJ	Degree=Pos	root	root
5	to	to	PART	_	6 have	mark
6	have	have	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	4 impossible	csubj
7	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	8 habitat	det
8	habitat	habitat	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 have	obj
9	with	with	ADP	_	11 lions	case
10	more	more	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	11 lions	amod
11	lions	lion	NOUN	Number=Plur	8 habitat	nmod
12	than	than	ADP	_	13 zebras	case
13	zebras	zebra	NOUN	Number=Plur	11 lions	nmod
14	for	for	ADP	_	15 long	case
15	long	long	ADJ	Degree=Pos	13 zebras	nmod
16	?	?	PUNCT	_	4 impossible	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is	present						impossible property	tree rules
2	have	to-infinitive		a habitat				with more lions than zebras for long	vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent habitat=Patient

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

Zebras would eat all the lions

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Zebras	zebra	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 lions	det:predet
5	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	6 lions	det
6	lions	lion	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 eat	obj

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

Option 2

Zebras would run away to other lands

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Zebras	zebra	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 run	nsubj
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 run	aux
3	run	run	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	away	away	ADV	_	3 run	advmod
5	to	to	ADP	_	7 lands	case
6	other	other	ADJ	Degree=Pos	7 lands	amod
7	lands	land	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 run	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	run away	would	Zebras					to other lands result; away property	vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V PP.result»: agent=Theme to land=Result

Option 3 · ✓ the right answer

The lions would not get enough food energy

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	2 lions	det
2	lions	lion	NOUN	Number=Plur	5 get	nsubj
3	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	5 get	aux
4	not	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	5 get	advmod
5	get	get	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
6	enough	enough	ADJ	Degree=Pos	8 energy	amod
7	food	food	NOUN	Number=Sing	8 energy	compound
8	energy	energy	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 get	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	not get	would	the lions	enough food energy					vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer energy=Stimulus

Option 4

Lions eat only grass in winter

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Lions	lion	NOUN	Number=Plur	2 eat	nsubj
2	eat	eat	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	only	only	ADV	_	4 grass	advmod
4	grass	grass	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 eat	obj
5	in	in	ADP	_	6 winter	case
6	winter	winter	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 eat	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	eat	present	Lions	grass			winter		vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent grass=Patient

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/30-balance-in-food-webs/t4/