Even Cathy Berberian knows...she can't sing

[Henry M]

If you're involved with AI and language, you gotta read Berwick:
http://tinyurl.com/berwickbooks


AsB4,
٩(●̮̮̃•̃)۶
Henry Mu
http://astore.amazon.com/tdcoccamsaxe-20



On Mon, Sep 13, 2010 at 5:59 AM, Michael Bailey
<michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com> wrote:
> i HAD tO kNOW, so I found out:
>
> http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/BuffaloBuffalo/buffalobuffalo.html
>
> my precis:
>
> (it's sort of like the class of all classes that do not include
> themselves...inasmuch as it's rather hard to grasp until you
> understand it)
>
> a) mice cats chase eat cheese
> (ie, mice ,(whom) cats chase, eat cheese)
>
> b) dogs (whom) dogs dog, (themselves) dog (certain other) dogs
>
> c) buffalo (whom certain other) buffalo buffalo (ie, play for a fool),
> themselves buffalo (other, presumably even more gullible) buffalo
>
> d) If we posit a certain confidence trick peculiar to the buffalo in
> the Buffalo (NY) zoo...
> (like a dance known as the "Kenosha", perhaps...), then...
>
> Buffalo buffalo (ie, buffalo in the Buffalo zoo) (whom)(other) Buffalo
> buffalo (play for a fool using the confidence trick known as the)
> Buffalo buffalo (are known, themselves, to perform the) Buffalo
> buffalo (upon other, presumably even more gullible) Buffalo buffalo --
> makes perfect sense, and many of us have seen it happen!
>
> -- and here's the relevant quote from the link:
>
> Date: Fri, 14 Apr 1995 15:22:26 -0400
> From: "William J. Rapaport"
> To: BERWICK at AI.MIT.EDU
> Subject: Buffalo sentences
>
> Dear Professor Berwick:
>
> I'm trying to track down the various origins of the Buffalo sentences
> that you discuss in your book with Barton and Ristad.
>
> Here's my version of the history:
>
> 1. In 1972, I took a graduate course in Philosophy of Language with
> John Tienson at Indiana University. He gave the sentence:
>
>      Dogs dogs dog dog dogs
>
> as an example of a syntactically and semantically correct sentence
> that was difficult for humans to parse without already understanding
> it (along the lines of "mice cats chase eat cheese"). My fellow grads
> and I tried to come up with a more aesthetically pleasing sentence
> without the -s plural marker. We rejected "fish fish fish fish fish"
> since one normally fishes *for* something. I then devised "buffalo
> buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo". Not being satisfied, I considered
> the buffalo in the Buffalo zoo (the Buffalo buffalo) and their unique
> way of buffaloing the other Buffalo buffalo, so unique that, like
> Tennessee waltzing, it's called Buffalo buffaloing, whence:
>
>      Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo
> Buffalo buffalo
>
> 2. Since 1976, I have been using those sentences in my courses at SUNY Buffalo.
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> "I have left my book,
> I have left my room,
> For I heard your voice
> singing through the gloom" - James Joyce
>