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PN = proper noun
N = noun
V = verb
NP = noun phrase
RC = relative clause
VP = verb phrase
S = sentence
"Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo." is a grammatically correct sentence used as an example of how homonyms and homophones can be used to create complicated constructs. It has been discussed in literature since 1972 when the sentence was used by William J. Rapaport, an associate professor at the University at Buffalo. It was posted to Linguist List by Rapaport in 1992. It was also featured in Steven Pinker's 1994 book The Language Instinct.
Sentence construction
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 Buffalo, New York (or any other place named "Buffalo"), which is used as an adjective in the sentence and is followed by the animal;
- n. the noun buffalo, an animal, in the plural (equivalent to "buffaloes" or "buffalos"), in order to avoid articles;
- v. the verb "buffalo" meaning to bully, confuse, deceive, or intimidate.
Marking each "buffalo" with its use as shown above gives
- Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.
Thus, the sentence when parsed reads as a description of the pecking order in the social hierarchy of buffaloes living in Buffalo:
- (Buffalo buffalo) (Buffalo buffalo) buffalo, buffalo (Buffalo buffalo).
- 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 buffaloed BY buffalo FROM Buffalo ALSO buffalo THE buffalo FROM Buffalo.
"Buffalo buffalo (main clause Subject) Buffalo buffalo (subordinate clause Direct Object) buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo ."
It may be revealing to read the sentence replacing all instances of the animal buffalo with "people" and the verb buffalo with "intimidate". The sentence then reads
- "Buffalo people Buffalo people intimidate intimidate Buffalo people."
Preserving the meaning more closely, substituting the synonym "bison" for "buffalo" (animal), "bully" for "buffalo" (verb) and leaving "Buffalo" to mean the city, yields
- 'Buffalo bison Buffalo bison bully bully Buffalo bison', or:
- 'Buffalo bison whom other Buffalo bison bully themselves bully Buffalo bison'.
To further understand the structure of the sentence, one can replace "Buffalo buffalo" with any number of noun phrases. Rather than referring to "Buffalo buffalo" intimidating other "Buffalo buffalo", one can use noun phrases like "Alley cats", "Junkyard dogs", and "Sewer rats". The sentence then reads
- "Alley cats Junkyard dogs intimidate intimidate Sewer rats."
This has the same sentence structure as 'Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo'.
Ambiguity
If the capitalization is ignored, the sentence can be read another way:
- Buffalo f u f u buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo.
That is, bison from Buffalo intimidate (other) bison from Buffalo that bison from Buffalo intimidate.
Parsing difficulty
Other than the confusion caused by the homophones, the sentence is difficult to parse for several reasons:
- The use of "buffalo" as a verb is not particularly common and itself has several meanings.
- The construction in the plural makes the verb "buffalo", like the city, rather than "buffaloes".
- The choice of "buffalo" rather than "buffaloes" as the plural form of the noun makes it identical to the verb.
- There are no grammatical cues from syntactically significant words such as articles (again possible because of the plural construction) or the relative pronoun "that".
- The absence of punctuation makes it difficult to read the flow of the sentence.
- Consequently, it is a garden path sentence, i.e., it cannot be parsed by reading one word at a time without backtracking.
- The statement includes a universal predicate about a class and also introduces a later class (the buffalo that are intimidated by intimidated buffalo) that may, but need not, be distinct from the first class.
- Parsing is ambiguous if capitalization is ignored. Using another adjectival sense of 'buffalo' ('cunning', derived from the sense 'to confuse'), the following alternative parsing is obtained: 'Buffalo bison bison bully, bully cunning Buffalo bison' (that is, the head of the verb phrase occurs one 'buffalo' earlier).
- The relative clause is center embedded, a construction which is hard to parse.
Extension
There is nothing special about eight "buffalo"s; indeed, a sentence with "buffalo" repeated any number of times is grammatically correct (according to Chomskyan theories of grammar). The shortest is 'Buffalo!', meaning either 'Bully (someone)!', or 'Look, there are buffalo here!', or 'Behold, it is the city of Buffalo!'.
Other words
Other English words can be used to make grammatical sentences of this form, containing many consecutive repetitions. Any word that is both an animate plural noun and a transitive verb will work. One un-punctuated example is "James while John had had had had had had had had had had had a better effect on the teacher". This could concern a situation in an English class regarding the usage of the word had, and might be punctuated as, "James, while John had had 'had', had had 'had had'; 'had had' had had a better effect on the teacher."
Other words which can be used in this manner include police, fish, people, and smelt.
See also
- James while John had had had had had had had had had had had a better effect on the teacher
- That that is is that that is not is not is that it it is
- Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den
- Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.
- Malo malo malo malo
- List of linguistic example sentences
- Semantic satiation
Notes
- Rapaport, William J. 22 September 2006. "A History of the Sentence "Buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo."". Accessed 23 September 2006. (archived copy)
- Rapaport, William J. 19 February 1992. "Message 1: Re: 3.154 Parsing Challenges". Accessed 14 September 2006.
- Pinker, Steven. The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language. William Morrow and Company, Inc., New York, 1994. p. 210
- Thomas Tymoczko; James M. Henle (2000), Sweet reason: a field guide to modern logic (2 ed.), Birkhäuser, pp. 99–100, ISBN 9780387989303
External links
Listen to this article(2 parts, 5 minutes)
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- "Buffaloing buffalo" at Language Log, 20 January 2005
- Easdown, David. Template:PDF
- The Emory Wheel, Andrew Swerlick What a Herd of Confused Bison from Upstate New York Can Teach Us About Our Difficulties With the English Language