Test 9 · ★ · Transport: from horses to planes

Why did early people often build towns beside rivers and coasts?

Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 2 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: early people · What happens: build · To what, where: towns, rivers

This is test 9 · ★ of lesson 99 «Transport: from horses to planes» 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	6 build	advmod
2	did	do	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	6 build	aux
3	early	early	ADJ	Degree=Pos	4 people	amod
4	people	people	NOUN	Number=Plur	6 build	nsubj
5	often	often	ADV	_	6 build	advmod
6	build	build	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
7	towns	town	NOUN	Number=Plur	6 build	obj
8	beside	beside	ADP	_	9 rivers	case
9	rivers	river	NOUN	Number=Plur	6 build	obl
10	and	and	CCONJ	_	11 coasts	cc
11	coasts	coast	NOUN	Number=Plur	9 rivers	conj
12	?	?	PUNCT	_	6 build	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	build	past · do-support	early people	towns		rivers and coasts		often property	vn build-26.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent town=Product

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

Rivers kept away every kind of wild, dangerous animal

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Rivers	river	NOUN	Number=Plur	root	root
2	kept	keep	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	1 Rivers	acl
3	away	away	ADV	_	2 kept	advmod
4	every	every	DET	PronType=Tot	5 kind	det
5	kind	kind	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 kept	obj
6	of	of	ADP	_	10 animal	case
7	wild	wild	ADJ	Degree=Pos	10 animal	amod
8	,	,	PUNCT	_	7 wild	punct
9	dangerous	dangerous	ADJ	Degree=Pos	10 animal	amod
10	animal	animal	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 kind	nmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	keep away	participle	Rivers not said here	every kind of wild dangerous animal				away property	vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent kind=Theme

Option 2 · ✓ the right answer

Boats made travel and trade easier there

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Boats	boat	NOUN	Number=Plur	2 made	nsubj
2	made	make	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	travel	travel	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 made	obj
4	and	and	CCONJ	_	5 trade	cc
5	trade	trade	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 travel	conj
6	easier	easy	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	2 made	xcomp
7	there	there	ADV	PronType=Dem	2 made	advmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	make	past	Boats	travel and trade		there		easy property	vn build-26.1-1 «NP.material V NP»: agent=Material travel=Product

Option 3

Roads could not be built inland

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Roads	road	NOUN	Number=Plur	5 built	nsubj:pass
2	could	could	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	5 built	aux
3	not	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	5 built	advmod
4	be	be	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	5 built	aux:pass
5	built	build	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	root	root
6	inland	inland	ADV	_	5 built	advmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	not build	could · passive		Roads				inland property	vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: subject=Product

Option 4

It never rained beside rivers

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	3 rained	nsubj
2	never	never	ADV	PronType=Neg	3 rained	advmod
3	rained	rain	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
4	beside	beside	ADP	_	5 rivers	case
5	rivers	river	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 rained	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	not rain	past	It			rivers			vn weather-57 «It V PP.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/99-transport-horses-to-planes/t9/