Test 9 · ★ · Floating and sinking: the push of water

Why would a submarine with empty tanks find it hard to stay under water?

Mova's choice: option 3 · The right answer: option 4 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: submarine · What happens: find, stay · To what, where: it, water

This is test 9 · ★ of lesson 83 «Floating and sinking: the push of water» 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	8 find	advmod
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	8 find	aux
3	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	4 submarine	det
4	submarine	submarine	NOUN	Number=Sing	8 find	nsubj
5	with	with	ADP	_	7 tanks	case
6	empty	empty	ADJ	Degree=Pos	7 tanks	amod
7	tanks	tank	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 submarine	nmod
8	find	find	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
9	it	it	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	8 find	obj
10	hard	hard	ADJ	Degree=Pos	8 find	xcomp
11	to	to	PART	_	12 stay	mark
12	stay	stay	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	10 hard	xcomp
13	under	under	ADP	_	14 water	case
14	water	water	NOUN	Number=Sing	12 stay	obl
15	?	?	PUNCT	_	8 find	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	find	would	a submarine with empty tanks	it				hard property	vn discover-84 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Topic
2	stay	to-infinitive				water			vn exist-47.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme under water=Location

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

It would be too heavy and would fall too fast

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	It	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	5 heavy	nsubj
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	5 heavy	aux
3	be	be	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	5 heavy	cop
4	too	too	ADV	_	5 heavy	advmod
5	heavy	heavy	ADJ	Degree=Pos	root	root
6	and	and	CCONJ	_	8 fall	cc
7	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	8 fall	aux
8	fall	fall	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	5 heavy	conj
9	too	too	ADV	_	10 fast	advmod
10	fast	fast	ADV	Degree=Pos	8 fall	advmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is	would	It					heavy property	tree rules
2	fall	would						fast property	vn occur-48.3 «NP V»: agent=Theme

Option 2

Empty tanks stop the propeller from turning

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Empty	empty	ADJ	Degree=Pos	2 tanks	amod
2	tanks	tank	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 stop	nsubj
3	stop	stop	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
4	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	5 propeller	det
5	propeller	propeller	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 stop	obj
6	from	from	SCONJ	_	7 turning	mark
7	turning	turn	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	3 stop	advcl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	stop	present	Empty tanks	the propeller					vn stop-55.4-1-1 «NP V NP.eventuality»: agent=Subeventuality propeller=Eventuality
2	turn	gerund	Empty tanks not said here						vn roll-51.3.1 «NP.theme V»: agent=Theme

Option 3 · ← Mova's choice

Its engine needs water in the tanks to work at all, so it stops

The tree, 14 words

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Its	its	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	2 engine	nmod:poss
2	engine	engine	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 needs	nsubj
3	needs	need	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
4	water	water	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 needs	obj
5	in	in	ADP	_	7 tanks	case
6	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	7 tanks	det
7	tanks	tank	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 needs	obl
8	to	to	PART	_	9 work	mark
9	work	work	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	3 needs	advcl
10	at	at	ADP	_	11 all	case
11	all	all	DET	PronType=Tot	9 work	obl
12	,	,	PUNCT	_	15 stops	punct
13	so	so	ADV	_	15 stops	advmod
14	it	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	15 stops	nsubj
15	stops	stop	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	3 needs	conj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	other	roles by
1	need	present	Its engine	water	the tanks		vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: agent=Pivot water=Theme
2	work	to-infinitive	Its engine not said here			at all	vn employment-95.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent at all=Theme
3	stop	present	engine				vn stop-55.4-1-1 «NP.eventuality V»: agent=Eventuality

Option 4 · ✓ the right answer

It would be too light, so the upthrust pushes it up

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	It	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	5 light	nsubj
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	5 light	aux
3	be	be	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	5 light	cop
4	too	too	ADV	_	5 light	advmod
5	light	light	ADJ	Degree=Pos	root	root
6	,	,	PUNCT	_	10 pushes	punct
7	so	so	ADV	_	10 pushes	advmod
8	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	9 upthrust	det
9	upthrust	upthrust	NOUN	Number=Sing	10 pushes	nsubj
10	pushes	push	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	5 light	advcl
11	it	it	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	10 pushes	obj
12	up	up	ADP	_	10 pushes	compound:prt

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is	would	It					light property	tree rules
2	push up	present	the upthrust	it					vn carry-11.4-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=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.

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