All right, I know, in the previous post I claimed that there were "a very few peculiar exceptions" to my claim that for any arbitrary string of words, with repetitions or without, nearly all orders you can put them in are ungrammatical; and I didn't say what the exceptions were. I can tell (no need to email me) that you, as a curious Language Log reader, want to know. I will at least partially satisfy your curiosity. Read on.
I will give you just one example, the case of strings consisting entirely of repetitions of the word buffalo. It turns out that all such strings are grammatical. Here are a few such strings, with rough paraphrases so that you can see that they have to be grammatical:
Buffalo.
"Engage in bamboozlement."Buffalo buffalo.
"American bison are characteristically given to engaging in bambloozlement."Buffalo buffalo buffalo.
"American bison are characteristically given to bamboozling other members of their species."Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo.
"American bison habitually bamboozled by members of their own species (that is, buffalo whom other buffalo regularly buffalo) characteristically engage in bamboozlement."Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo.
"American bison habitually bamboozled by members of their own species (that is, buffalo whom other buffalo regularly buffalo) tend to return the compliment by bamboozling in turn yet other members of the species."Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo.
"American bison habitually bamboozled by members of their own species that have themselves been bamboozled by others of their ilk (that is, buffalo whom other buffalo who have themselves been buffaloed by buffalo regularly buffalo) tend to engage in bamboozlement."Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo.
...
O.K., I think I've done enough of these for you to see which way this is going.
Posted by Geoffrey K. Pullum at January 20, 2005 01:03 PM