Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo

Buffalo buffalo
"Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo
Buffalo buffalo" is a grammatically correct sentence
in English, often presented as an example of how
homonyms and homophones can be used to create
complicated linguistic constructs through lexical
ambiguity. It has been discussed in the literature in
various forms since 1967 when it appeared in Dmitri
Borgmann's Beyond Language: Adventures in Word
and Thought.

The sentence employs three distinct meanings of the Simplified parse tree
word buffalo:
S = sentence
as a proper noun to refer to a specific place NP = noun phrase
named Buffalo, the city of Buffalo, New York, RC = relative clause
being the most notable; VP = verb phrase
as a verb (uncommon in regular usage) to PN = proper noun
buffalo, meaning "to bully, harass, or N = noun
intimidate" or "to baffle"; and V = verb
as a noun to refer to the animal, bison (often
called buffalo in North America). The plural
is also buffalo.

An expanded form of the sentence that preserves the original word order is: "Buffalo bison that other Buffalo
bison bully also bully Buffalo bison."

Contents
Sentence construction
Usage
Origin
See also
References
External links

Sentence construction
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 noun adjunct in
the sentence;
n. the noun buffalo (American bison), an animal, in the
plural (equivalent to "buffaloes" or "buffalos"), in order to
avoid articles.
v. the verb "buffalo" meaning to outwit, confuse, deceive,
intimidate, or baffle.

The sentence is syntactically ambiguous; however, one possible parse Reed–Kellogg diagram of the
(marking each "buffalo" with its part of speech as shown above) sentence
would be as follows:

Buffaloa buffalon Buffaloa buffalon buffalov buffalov Buffaloa buffalon .

When grouped syntactically, this is equivalent to: [(Buffalonian bison) (Buffalonian bison intimidate)]
intimidate (Buffalonian bison).

The sentence uses a restrictive clause, 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 reduced relative clause,
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 parsed 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):

1. Buffalo buffalo (the animals called "buffalo" from the city of Buffalo) [that] Buffalo buffalo buffalo
(that the animals from the city bully) buffalo Buffalo buffalo (are bullying these animals from that
city).
2. [Those] buffalo(es) from Buffalo [that are intimidated by] buffalo(es) from Buffalo intimidate
buffalo(es) from Buffalo.
3. Bison from Buffalo, New York, who are intimidated by other bison in their community, also
happen to intimidate other bison in their community.
4. The buffalo from Buffalo who are buffaloed by buffalo from Buffalo, buffalo (verb) other buffalo
from Buffalo.
5. Buffalo buffalo (main clause subject) [that] Buffalo buffalo (subordinate clause subject) buffalo
(subordinate clause verb) buffalo (main clause verb) Buffalo buffalo (main clause direct object).
6. [Buffalo from Buffalo] that [buffalo from Buffalo] buffalo, also buffalo [buffalo from Buffalo].

Usage

Thomas Tymoczko has pointed out that there is nothing special about
eight "buffalos";[1] 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 imperative
instruction to bully someone ("[You] buffalo!") with the implied
subject "you" removed,[2]: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 A diagram explaining the sentence
from?" Tymoczko uses the sentence as an example illustrating rewrite
rules in linguistics.[2]:104–105

Origin
The idea that one can construct a grammatically correct sentence Diagram using a comparison to
consisting of nothing but repetitions of "buffalo" was independently explain the buffalo sentence
discovered several times in the 20th century. The earliest known
written example, "Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo", appears in the
original manuscript for Dmitri Borgmann's 1965 book Language on Vacation, though the chapter containing it
was omitted from the published version.[3] Borgmann recycled some of the material from this chapter,
including the "buffalo" sentence, in his 1967 book, Beyond Language: Adventures in Word and
Thought.[4]:290 In 1972, William J. Rapaport, now a professor at the University at Buffalo but then a graduate
student at Indiana University, came up with versions containing five and ten instances of "buffalo".[5] He later
used both versions in his teaching, and in 1992 posted them to the LINGUIST List.[5][6] A sentence with eight
consecutive buffalos is featured in Steven Pinker's 1994 book The Language Instinct as an example of a
sentence that is "seemingly nonsensical" but grammatical. Pinker names his student, Annie Senghas, as the
inventor of the sentence.[7]:210

Neither Rapaport, Pinker, nor Senghas were initially aware of the earlier coinages.[5] Pinker learned of
Rapaport's earlier example only in 1994, and Rapaport was not informed of Borgmann's sentence until
2006.[5]

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").[8]

See also
General:

Eats, Shoots & Leaves

List of linguistic example sentences
Polyptoton
Semantic satiation

Other linguistically complex sentences:

James while John had had had had had had had had had had had a better effect on the
teacher
Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den
That that is is that that is not is not is that it it is
Neko no ko koneko, shishi no ko kojishi

References
1. Henle, James; Garfield, Jay; Tymoczko, Thomas (2011). Sweet Reason: A Field Guide to
Modern Logic. John Wiley and Sons. ISBN 1118078632.
2. Thomas Tymoczko; James M. Henle (2000). Sweet reason: a field guide to modern logic (http
s://books.google.com/books?id=LQnsSuvP9dAC&pg=PA99) (2 ed.). Birkhäuser. ISBN 978-0-
387-98930-3. Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20200422112819/https://books.google.co
 m/books?id=LQnsSuvP9dAC&pg=PA99) from the original on 22 April 2020. Retrieved
23 September 2016.
3. Eckler, Jr., A. Ross (November 2005). "The Borgmann Apocrypha" (http://digitalcommons.butle
r.edu/wordways/vol38/iss4/4/). Word Ways: The Journal of Recreational Linguistics. 38 (4):
258–260. Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20141101221036/http://digitalcommons.butler.
edu/wordways/vol38/iss4/4/) from the original on 1 November 2014. Retrieved 9 December
2014.
4. Borgmann, Dmitri A. (1967). Beyond Language: Adventures in Word and Thought. New York:
Charles Scribner's Sons. OCLC 655067975 (https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/655067975).
5. Rapaport, William J. (5 October 2012). "A History of the Sentence 'Buffalo buffalo buffalo
Buffalo buffalo.' " (http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/buffalobuffalo.html). University at
Buffalo Computer Science and Engineering. Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/200806211
62601/http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/buffalobuffalo.html) from the original on 21 June
2008. Retrieved 7 December 2014.
6. Rapaport, William J. (19 February 1992). "Message 1: Re: 3.154 Parsing Challenges" (https://w
eb.archive.org/web/20091019180523/http://linguistlist.org/issues/3/3-175.html#1). LINGUIST
List. Archived from the original (http://www.linguistlist.org/issues/3/3-175.html#1) on 19 October
2009. Retrieved 14 September 2006.
7. Pinker, Steven (1994). The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language. New York:
William Morrow and Company, Inc.
8. Gärtner, Hans-Martin (2002). Generalized Transformations and Beyond. Berlin: Akademie
Verlag. p. 58. ISBN 978-3050032467.

External links
Buffaloing buffalo (http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001817.html) at
Language Log, 20 January 2005
Easdown, David. "Teaching mathematics: The gulf between semantics (meaning) and syntax
(form)" (http://www.maths.usyd.edu.au/u/pubs/publist/preprints/2006/easdown-13.pdf)
(PDF). (273 KB)
William J. Rapaport, A History of the Sentence "Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo." (https://c
se.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/BuffaloBuffalo/buffalobuffalo.html)

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?

title=Buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffalo_buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffalo&oldid=1016981892"

This page was last edited on 10 April 2021, at 03:37 (UTC).

Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. By using this
site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia
Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.