Exam question 4 · Insects and spiders

Ascertain the purpose of the waggle dance performed by a honeybee.

Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 2 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: you, waggle dance · What happens: ascertain, perform, purpose · To what, where: purpose, waggle dance

This is exam question 4 of lesson 72 «Insects and spiders» 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	Ascertain	ascertain	VERB	Mood=Imp VerbForm=Fin	root	root
2	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	3 purpose	det
3	purpose	purpose	NOUN	Number=Sing	1 Ascertain	obj
4	of	of	ADP	_	7 dance	case
5	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	7 dance	det
6	waggle	waggle	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 dance	compound
7	dance	dance	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 purpose	nmod
8	performed	perform	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	7 dance	acl
9	by	by	ADP	_	11 honeybee	case
10	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	11 honeybee	det
11	honeybee	honeybee	NOUN	Number=Sing	8 performed	obl
12	.	.	PUNCT	_	1 Ascertain	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	other	roles by
1	ascertain	imperative	you not said here	the purpose of the waggle dance		vn discover-84 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent purpose=Topic
2	perform	participle		the waggle dance not said here	by a honeybee	vn performance-26.7 «NP V»: agent=Agent
3	purpose		the waggle dance			nom purpose «cognition intransitive»: of=agent

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

To warm the hive in winter

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	To	to	PART	_	2 warm	mark
2	warm	warm	VERB	Mood=Imp VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	4 hive	det
4	hive	hive	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 warm	obj
5	in	in	ADP	_	6 winter	case
6	winter	winter	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 warm	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	warm	to-infinitive		the hive			winter		vn other_cos-45.4 «NP V NP.patient»: agent=Agent hive=Patient

Option 2 · ✓ the right answer

To communicate to other bees the location of flowers

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	To	to	PART	_	2 communicate	mark
2	communicate	communicate	VERB	Mood=Imp VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	to	to	ADP	_	5 bees	case
4	other	other	ADJ	Degree=Pos	5 bees	amod
5	bees	bee	NOUN	Number=Plur	2 communicate	obl
6	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	7 location	det
7	location	location	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 communicate	obj
8	of	of	ADP	_	9 flowers	case
9	flowers	flower	NOUN	Number=Plur	7 location	nmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	communicate	to-infinitive		the location of flowers	other bees				vn transfer_mesg-37.1.1 «NP V NP PP.recipient»: agent=Agent location=Topic to bee=Recipient

Option 3

To choose the queen of the colony

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	To	to	PART	_	2 choose	mark
2	choose	choose	VERB	Mood=Imp VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	4 queen	det
4	queen	queen	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 choose	obj
5	of	of	ADP	_	7 colony	case
6	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	7 colony	det
7	colony	colony	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 queen	nmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	choose	to-infinitive		the queen of the colony					vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent queen=Theme

Option 4

To frighten away hungry birds

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	To	to	PART	_	2 frighten	mark
2	frighten	frighten	VERB	Mood=Imp VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	away	away	ADV	_	2 frighten	advmod
4	hungry	hungry	ADJ	Degree=Pos	5 birds	amod
5	birds	bird	NOUN	Number=Plur	2 frighten	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	frighten away	to-infinitive		hungry birds				away property	vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Stimulus bird=Experiencer

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/72-insects-and-spiders/e4/