---
title: But the phantom did but fly the faster, and the Prince spent the who… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: But the phantom did but fly the faster, and the Prince spent the whole day in this vain pursuit. Who acts: phantom, Prince. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Golden Branch, part 3, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, The Golden Branch, part 3, sentence 26

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But the phantom did but fly the faster, and the Prince spent the whole day in this vain pursuit.

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**Who acts:** phantom, Prince · **What happens:** do, fly, spend · **To what, where:** vain pursuit

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Golden Branch, part 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (phantom, Prince), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Parsed by Mova, not checked by a teacher.** This tree is Mova's own parse (the `en` model, on the CPU, when the site is built); it may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg540:36:26
# text = But the phantom did but fly the faster, and the Prince spent the whole day in this vain pursuit.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	phantom	phantom	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	did	do	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
6	fly	fly	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	conj	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	faster	fast	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	6	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	Prince	Prince	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	_
13	spent	spend	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
15	whole	whole	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	amod	_	_
16	day	day	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	_
17	in	in	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
18	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	20	det	_	_
19	vain	vain	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	20	amod	_	_
20	pursuit	pursuit	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **do** | past | the phantom |  |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **fly** | infinitive | the phantom *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **spend** | past | the Prince |  |  | this vain pursuit | day |  | vn consume-66-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .note -->
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.

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**Text:** «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 540 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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