Test 7 · ★★★ · Thinking like a geographer: rivers, mountains and deserts

If the Sun stopped evaporating water from the oceans, what would happen to the rivers after some time?

Mova's choice: option 3 · The right answer: option 1 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: Sun · What happens: stop, evaporate, happen · To what, where: water, oceans

This is test 7 · ★★★ of lesson 50 «Thinking like a geographer: rivers, mountains and deserts» 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	If	if	SCONJ	_	4 stopped	mark
2	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	3 Sun	det
3	Sun	Sun	PROPN	Number=Sing	4 stopped	nsubj
4	stopped	stop	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	13 happen	advcl
5	evaporating	evaporate	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	4 stopped	xcomp
6	water	water	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 evaporating	obj
7	from	from	ADP	_	9 oceans	case
8	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	9 oceans	det
9	oceans	ocean	NOUN	Number=Plur	5 evaporating	obl
10	,	,	PUNCT	_	4 stopped	punct
11	what	what	PRON	PronType=Int	13 happen	nsubj
12	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	13 happen	aux
13	happen	happen	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
14	to	to	ADP	_	16 rivers	case
15	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	16 rivers	det
16	rivers	river	NOUN	Number=Plur	13 happen	obl
17	after	after	ADP	_	19 time	case
18	some	some	DET	PronType=Ind	19 time	det
19	time	time	NOUN	Number=Sing	13 happen	obl
20	?	?	PUNCT	_	13 happen	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	stop a condition, not said to happen	past	the Sun					vn stop-55.4-1-1 «NP V S_ING»: agent=Affector clause=Eventuality
2	evaporate	gerund	the Sun not said here	water	the oceans			vn other_cos-45.4 «NP V NP.patient»: agent=Agent water=Patient
3	happen	would				time	to the rivers	vn occur-48.3-1 «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 · ✓ the right answer

They would dry up, because no new rain would fall

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	They	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	3 dry	nsubj
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 dry	aux
3	dry	dry	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	up	up	ADP	_	3 dry	compound:prt
5	,	,	PUNCT	_	11 fall	punct
6	because	because	SCONJ	_	11 fall	mark
7	no	no	DET	PronType=Neg	9 rain	det
8	new	new	ADJ	Degree=Pos	9 rain	amod
9	rain	rain	NOUN	Number=Sing	11 fall	nsubj
10	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	11 fall	aux
11	fall	fall	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	3 dry	parataxis

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	dry up	would	They						vn other_cos-45.4-1 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient
2	fall	would	no new rain						vn occur-48.3 «NP V»: agent=Theme

Option 2

Nothing would change for the rivers

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Nothing	nothing	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Neg	3 change	nsubj
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 change	aux
3	change	change	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	for	for	ADP	_	6 rivers	case
5	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	6 rivers	det
6	rivers	river	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 change	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	change	would	Nothing					for the rivers	vn dress-41.1.1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent

Option 3 · ← Mova's choice

They would flow faster than ever before, full of sea water

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	They	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	3 flow	nsubj
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 flow	aux
3	flow	flow	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	faster	fast	ADV	Degree=Cmp	3 flow	advmod
5	than	than	ADP	_	6 ever	case
6	ever	ever	ADV	PronType=Ind	3 flow	obl
7	before	before	ADV	_	3 flow	advmod
8	,	,	PUNCT	_	9 full	punct
9	full	full	ADJ	Degree=Pos	3 flow	conj
10	of	of	ADP	_	12 water	case
11	sea	sea	NOUN	Number=Sing	12 water	compound
12	water	water	NOUN	Number=Sing	9 full	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	flow	would	They					before, fast property	vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme

Option 4

They would start flowing uphill

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	They	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	3 start	nsubj
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 start	aux
3	start	start	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	flowing	flow	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	3 start	xcomp
5	uphill	uphill	ADV	_	4 flowing	advmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	start	would	They						vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S_ING»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality
2	flow	gerund	They not said here					uphill property	vn appear-48.1.1 «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/world/50-why-the-earth-is-so/t7/