[amichal]

Yeah, not a candidate for the list. I thought it wasn't because the list was about > 2 different spellings that sound "identical" but mean different things.

I agree with you and when I (a non-linguist) first learned about this it did occur to me that there was probably some infinite recursive version and it took *some* of the fun out of it. Its' still fun as is this list.

I also suspect there are lots of good examples of whatever a word with multiple meanings with different parts of speech is called. So it should be possible to find...use many "Buffalo buffalo buffalo..."

[bryanrasmussen]

I prefer the Police version https://medium.com/luminasticity/grammatical-infinities-what...

[SamBam]

I'd argue that that post isn't quite correct. They say you can't always add one and have it be correct, I think you can.

One word: "Police!" This is the odd-duck, you can have a one-word imperative statement telling you to police.

Rule 1: We can always have a [Noun phrase] + [verb], the verb just says what the noun phrase does.

Two words: "Police police." (Cops police) What do cops do? They police.

Rule 2: Any time you have a [noun phrase] + [verb], you can add a direct object to the verb.

Three words: "Police police police." Who do the cops police? They police other cops.

Finally rule 3: Any time you have a [subject] + [verb] + [object] you can rearrange the object to make it the subject of a new sentence. In this case, the subject of the new sentence would be "Cops that other cops police." Or "Police (that) police police."

In English, the "that" is not necessary (though it usually helps with clarity). For instance, we can say "Mice cats eat are usually the slow ones."

Then apply rule 1, we can take any noun phrase and add a verb to it to describe what those entities do. ("Mice cats eat die.")

So four words (Rule 3 + 1): "Police police police police." The cops that other cops police, themselves police.

Five words, from rule 2, who do they police? "Police police police police police."

Six words, from rules 3 + 1, rearrange and add a verb: "Police police police police police police."

etc.

[bryanrasmussen]

hmm, yeah that's right with the imperative model you can have a grammatically correct sentence as well, so that means

the sentence [police police] police [police]

meaning: The police police will police the police.

could also be

[police police police] police!

meaning: the members of the set police police police (those who police the special police forces that police the normal street police) commit the action of policing!

If I'm understanding what you are saying?

[SamBam]

Kind of. Though it doesn't need to be in the imperative. "Cats sleep" is a fine descriptive phrase of what cats do. "Police police" is similarly a description of what cops do.

But the original article seems to have "Police police" as a noun phrase, meaning "the police of the police," and that's how it goes to infinity -- you can keep on adding another "police" to the noun phrase.

That seems uglier to me. It just a string of nouns and an assertion that the "police police" (or the "police police police") are a named thing.

My version takes a object of the sentence and makes it a noun phrase. So if the cops hunt criminals, we could make a noun phrase: the criminals that cops hunt. We can then make add a verb at the end. "Criminals cops hunt fight." (When the criminals get hunted, they get anxious and start fighting.) You can then add a object to that verb. "Criminals cops hunt fight alligators." Replace all those nouns and verbs with "police" and you get your sentence.