| Revision as of 21:29, 22 September 2015 view sourcePrinsgezinde (talk | contribs)Extended confirmed users, Pending changes reviewers11,900 edits Fixing some odd localizations← Previous edit | Revision as of 19:32, 24 September 2015 view source 92.16.200.100 (talk) ←Replaced content with 'This is good.'Tags: blanking Possible vandalismNext edit → | ||
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| This is good. | |||
| ] | |||
| <br /> | |||
| PN = ]<br /> | |||
| N = ]<br /> | |||
| V = ]<br /> | |||
| NP = ]<br /> | |||
| RC = ]<br /> | |||
| VP = ]<br /> | |||
| S = ] | |||
| ]] | |||
| "'''Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo'''" is a ] ] in the ], used as an example of how ]s and ]s can be used to create complicated linguistic constructs. It has been discussed in literature, in various forms, since 1967 when it appeared in ]'s '']''. | |||
| The sentence uses three distinct meanings of the word ''buffalo'': the city of ]; the somewhat uncommon verb ''to buffalo'', meaning "to bully or intimidate"; and the ]. Paraphrased, the sentence can be parsed to mean, "Bison from Buffalo, which bison from Buffalo bully, themselves bully bison from Buffalo." | |||
| ==Sentence construction== | |||
| ] of the sentence]] | |||
| ] | |||
| ] | |||
| The sentence is unpunctuated and uses three different readings of the word "buffalo". In order of their first use, these are: | |||
| * '''a.''' the city of ], ], which is used as a ] in the sentence and is followed by the animal; | |||
| * '''n.''' the ] ], an animal, in the plural (equivalent to "buffaloes" or "buffalos"), in order to avoid ]; | |||
| * '''v.''' the ] "]" meaning to outwit, confuse, deceive, or intimidate. | |||
| The sentence is syntactically ambiguous; however, one possible parse (marking each "buffalo" with its part of speech as shown above) would be as follows: | |||
| :Buffalo<sup>a</sup> buffalo<sup>n</sup> Buffalo<sup>a</sup> buffalo<sup>n</sup> buffalo<sup>v</sup> buffalo<sup>v</sup> Buffalo<sup>a</sup> buffalo<sup>n</sup>. | |||
| The sentence uses a ], so there are no commas, nor is there the word "which," as in, "Buffalo buffalo, which Buffalo buffalo buffalo, buffalo Buffalo buffalo." This clause is also a ], so the word ''that'', which could appear between the second and third words of the sentence, is omitted. | |||
| Thus, the ] sentence reads as a claim that bison who ''are intimidated or bullied by bison'' are themselves ''intimidating or bullying bison'' (at least in the city of Buffalo– implicitly, Buffalo, NY): | |||
| :#Buffalo buffalo (buffalo from Buffalo NY) Buffalo buffalo buffalo (that the buffalo from Buffalo NY bully) buffalo Buffalo buffalo (are bullying buffalo from Buffalo NY). | |||
| :# buffalo(es) from Buffalo buffalo(es) from Buffalo intimidate buffalo(es) from Buffalo. | |||
| :#Bison from Buffalo, New York, who are intimidated by other bison in their community, also happen to intimidate other bison in their community. | |||
| :#'''''The''''' buffalo '''''from''''' Buffalo '''''who are''''' buffalo'''''ed by''''' buffalo '''''from''''' Buffalo, buffalo (verb) '''''other''''' buffalo '''''from''''' Buffalo. | |||
| :#Buffalo buffalo (main clause subject) Buffalo buffalo (] subject) buffalo (subordinate clause verb) buffalo (] verb) Buffalo buffalo (main clause direct object). | |||
| ===Usage=== | |||
| ] has pointed out that there is nothing special about eight "buffalos"; any sentence consisting solely of the word "buffalo" repeated any number of times is grammatically correct. The shortest is "Buffalo!", which can be taken as an ] instruction to bully someone (" buffalo!") with the implied subject "you" removed.<ref name="sweet" />{{rp|99–100, 104}} Tymoczko uses the sentence as an example illustrating ]s in linguistics.<ref name="sweet" />{{rp|104–105}} | |||
| ==Origin== | |||
| The idea that one can construct a grammatically correct sentence consisting of nothing but repetitions of "buffalo" was independently discovered several times in the 20th century. The earliest known written example, "Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo", appears in the original manuscript for ]'s 1965 book '']'', though the chapter containing it was omitted from the published version.<ref name="apocrypha" /> Borgmann recycled some of the material from this chapter, including the "buffalo" sentence, in his 1967 book, '']''.<ref name="borgmann" />{{rp|290}} In 1972, ], now a professor at the ] but then a graduate student at ], came up with versions containing five and ten instances of "buffalo".<ref name="history" /> He later used both versions in his teaching, and in 1992 posted them to the ].<ref name="history" /><ref name="Linguistlist" /> A sentence with eight consecutive "buffalo"s is featured in ]'s 1994 book '']'' as an example of a sentence that is "seemingly nonsensical" but grammatical. Pinker names his student, Annie Senghas, as the inventor of the sentence.<ref name="pinker" />{{rp|210}} | |||
| Neither Rapaport, Pinker, nor Senghas were initially aware of the earlier coinages.<ref name="history" /> Pinker learned of Rapaport's earlier example only in 1994, and Rapaport was not informed of Borgmann's sentence until 2006.<ref name="history" /> Even Borgmann's example may not be the oldest: computational linguist Robert C. Berwick, who used a five-"buffalo" version in a 1987 book,<ref name="berwick" />{{rp|100}} claims he had heard the sentence as a child ("before 1972, to be sure") and had assumed it was part of common parlance.<ref name="history" /> | |||
| Versions of the linguistic oddity can be constructed with other words which similarly simultaneously serve as collective noun, adjective, and verb, some of which need no capitalization (such as "police").<ref name="gaertner" /> | |||
| ==See also== | |||
| * ] | |||
| * '']'' | |||
| * ] | |||
| * ] | |||
| * ] | |||
| * ] | |||
| * ] | |||
| * ] | |||
| ==References== | |||
| {{reflist|refs= | |||
| <ref name="history">{{cite web |url=http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/buffalobuffalo.html |title=A History of the Sentence 'Buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.'|last=Rapaport |first=William J. |authorlink=William J. Rapaport |date=October 5, 2012 |website=University at Buffalo Computer Science and Engineering |publisher= |accessdate=December 7, 2014}}</ref> | |||
| <ref name="Linguistlist">{{cite web |url=http://www.linguistlist.org/issues/3/3-175.html#1 |title=Message 1: Re: 3.154 Parsing Challenges |last=Rapaport |first=William J. |authorlink=William J. Rapaport |date=February 19, 1992 |website=] |publisher= |accessdate=September 14, 2006}}</ref> | |||
| <ref name="pinker">{{cite book |last=Pinker |first=Steven |authorlink=Steven Pinker |date=1994 |title=] |url= |location=New York, NY, USA |publisher=William Morrow and Company, Inc. |page= |isbn= |accessdate= }}</ref> | |||
| <ref name="sweet">{{Cite book | year=2000 | title = Sweet reason: a field guide to modern logic | author1=Thomas Tymoczko | author2=James M. Henle | edition=2 | publisher=Birkhäuser | isbn=978-0-387-98930-3 | pages= | url=http://books.google.com/?id=LQnsSuvP9dAC&pg=PA99 | postscript=<!--None-->}}</ref> | |||
| <ref name="borgmann">{{cite book | |||
| |title=] | |||
| |first=Dmitri A. | |||
| |last=Borgmann | |||
| |authorlink=Dmitri Borgmann | |||
| |location=New York, NY, USA | |||
| |publisher=] | |||
| |oclc=655067975 | |||
| |year=1967 | |||
| }}</ref> | |||
| <ref name="berwick">{{Cite book |year=1987 |location=Cambridge, MA, USA |publisher=] |title=Computational Complexity and Natural Language |first1=G. Edward, Jr. |last1=Barton |first2=Robert C. |last2=Berwick |first3=Eric Sven |last3=Ristad}}</ref> | |||
| <ref name="apocrypha">{{cite journal |authorlink=A. Ross Eckler, Jr. |last=Eckler, Jr. |first=A. Ross |date=November 2005 |title=The Borgmann Apocrypha |url=http://digitalcommons.butler.edu/wordways/vol38/iss4/4/ |journal=] |publisher= |volume=38 |issue=4 |pages=258–260 |doi= |accessdate=}}</ref> | |||
| <ref name="gaertner">{{cite book |last=Gärtner |first=Hans-Martin |date=2002 |title=Generalized Transformations and Beyond |url= |location=Berlin |publisher=] |page=58 |isbn=978-3050032467 |accessdate= }}</ref> | |||
| }} | |||
| ==External links== | |||
| {{Spoken Misplaced Pages|buffalo8.ogg|2006-12-09}} | |||
| {{wiktionary|buffalo}} | |||
| * "" at '']'', 20 January 2005 | |||
| * Easdown, David. {{PDF||273 KB}} | |||
| ===Video clip=== | |||
| * {{youtube|hv-fMZgyuaw|Explanation of the concept}} | |||
| {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2011}} | |||
| * {{youtube|65Mv3jHgiew|Video explanation of this sentence}} | |||
| ] | |||
| ] | |||
| ] | |||
| ] | |||
| ] | |||
Revision as of 19:32, 24 September 2015
This is good.