| Revision as of 03:36, 20 January 2018 view sourceBobsbeenjamin (talk | contribs)32 editsm →In popular culture: Added a comma, for clarity← Previous edit | Revision as of 16:46, 22 January 2018 view source 50.59.162.81 (talk) ←Replaced content with 'Vote 2036'Tags: Replaced blankingNext edit → | ||
| Line 1: | Line 1: | ||
| Vote 2036 | |||
| ] | |||
| S = ]<br /> | |||
| NP = ]<br /> | |||
| RC = ]<br /> | |||
| VP = ]<br /> | |||
| PN = ]<br /> | |||
| N = ]<br /> | |||
| V = ]<br /> | |||
| ]] | |||
| "'''Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.'''" is a ] ] in American ], often presented as an example of how ]s and ]s can be used to create complicated linguistic constructs through ]. It has been discussed in literature in various forms since 1967, when it appeared in ]'s '']''. | |||
| The sentence employs three distinct meanings of the word ''buffalo'': | |||
| *as a proper noun to refer to a specific place named Buffalo, the city of ], ] being the most notable; | |||
| *as a verb (uncommon in regular usage) ''to buffalo'', meaning "to bully, harass, or intimidate" or "to baffle"; and | |||
| *as a noun to refer to the animal, ] (often called ''buffalo'' in North America). The plural is also ''buffalo''. | |||
| More easily decoded, though semantically equivalent, would be:{{nb5}}''Buffalo from Buffalo{{nb5}}that other buffalo from Buffalo bully{{nb5}} bully buffalo from Buffalo.'' | |||
| ==Sentence construction== | |||
| {{Refimprove section|date=August 2016}} | |||
| ] of the sentence]] | |||
| ] engaged in a contest of dominance. This sentence supposes they have a history of such bullying with other buffalo, and they are from Buffalo, New York.]] | |||
| ] | |||
| The sentence is unpunctuated and uses three different readings of the word "buffalo". In order of their first use, these are: | |||
| * '''a.''' a city named Buffalo. This is used as a ] in the sentence; | |||
| * '''n.''' the ] ] (American bison), an animal, in the plural (equivalent to "buffaloes" or "buffalos"), in order to avoid ]. | |||
| * '''v.''' the ] "]" meaning to outwit, confuse, deceive, intimidate, or baffle. | |||
| 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>. | |||
| When grouped syntactically, this is equivalent to: intimidate (Buffalonian bison). | |||
| 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. | |||
| An expanded form of the sentence which preserves the original word order is: | |||
| "Buffalo bison, that other Buffalo bison bully, also bully Buffalo bison." | |||
| 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, New York): | |||
| :#Buffalo buffalo (the animals called "buffalo" from the city of Buffalo) Buffalo buffalo buffalo (that the animals from the city bully) buffalo Buffalo buffalo (are bullying these animals from that city). | |||
| :# 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). | |||
| :# that buffalo, also buffalo . | |||
| : | |||
| ] | |||
| ] | |||
| ===Usage=== | |||
| ] has pointed out that there is nothing special about eight "buffalos";<ref>{{Cite book|title=Sweet Reason: A Field Guide to Modern Logic|last=Henle|first=James|last2=Garfield|first2=Jay|last3=Tymoczko|first3=Thomas|publisher=John Wiley and Sons|year=2011|isbn=1118078632|location=|pages=}}</ref> 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 a verbal ] instruction to bully someone (" buffalo!") with the implied subject "you" removed,<ref name="sweet" />{{rp|99–100, 104}} or as a noun exclamation, expressing e.g. that a buffalo has been sighted, or as an adjectival exclamation, e.g. as a response to the question, "where are you from?" 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 ], adjective, and verb, some of which need no capitalization (such as "police").<ref name="gaertner" /> | |||
| == In popular culture == | |||
| * A parsed version of the sentence is in the lyrics for the song "" by ], from the soundtrack for '']''.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://play.google.com/music/preview/Tsfinr4wlyspb6hjqoefibdbhku?lyrics=1&u=0#|title=Buffalo - Alt-J|website=play.google.com|access-date=2017-04-07}}</ref> | |||
| ==See also== | |||
| * ] | |||
| * ] | |||
| * '']'' | |||
| * ] | |||
| * ] | |||
| * ] | |||
| * ] | |||
| * ] | |||
| * ] | |||
| ==References== | |||
| {{reflist|30em|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=5 October 2012 |website=University at Buffalo Computer Science and Engineering |publisher= |accessdate=7 December 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=19 February 1992 |website=] |publisher= |accessdate=14 September 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=https://books.google.com/books?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. {{cite web|url= http://www.maths.usyd.edu.au/u/pubs/publist/preprints/2006/easdown-13.pdf |title=Teaching mathematics: The gulf between semantics (meaning) and syntax (form) }} {{small|(273 KB)}} | |||
| {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2011}} | |||
| ] | |||
| ] | |||
| ] | |||
| ] | |||
| ] | |||
| ] | |||
Revision as of 16:46, 22 January 2018
Vote 2036