![According to wikipedia, northern pike feed on perch, and perch feed on bleak. These facts will be important. And for pike to feed on perch, it must also be true that pike catch perch, and to catch a fish is to fish a fish, clearly. So it would be factually accurate to say that:
Pike fish perch.
Perch fish bleak.
Pike are fish.
Perch are fish that pike fish. (by 1)
Bleak are fish that perch fish. (by 2)
Perch are fish pike fish. (by 4, just dropping the “that”)
Bleak are fish perch fish. (by 5, just dropping the “that”)
Bleak are fish fish pike fish fish. (by 4 and 5)
Fish pike fish fish fish fish pike fish fish. (by 2, 7, and 8)
Fish fish fish fish fish fish fish fish fish. (by 3 and 9)
You got that right. The sentence “Fish fish fish fish fish fish fish fish fish.” means roughly the same thing as “perch feed on bleak”. If you consider freshwater shrimp to be fish, things get way way crazier.
[The tree was made using phpSyntaxTree. The e’s are phonologically null traces in the relative clauses—they are semantically linked to the fish that heads the NP where the RC attaches.]](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ljo2tlJ5aY1qzj18yo1_400.png)
According to wikipedia, northern pike feed on perch, and perch feed on bleak. These facts will be important. And for pike to feed on perch, it must also be true that pike catch perch, and to catch a fish is to fish a fish, clearly. So it would be factually accurate to say that:
- Pike fish perch.
- Perch fish bleak.
- Pike are fish.
- Perch are fish that pike fish. (by 1)
- Bleak are fish that perch fish. (by 2)
- Perch are fish pike fish. (by 4, just dropping the “that”)
- Bleak are fish perch fish. (by 5, just dropping the “that”)
- Bleak are fish fish pike fish fish. (by 4 and 5)
- Fish pike fish fish fish fish pike fish fish. (by 2, 7, and 8)
- Fish fish fish fish fish fish fish fish fish. (by 3 and 9)
You got that right. The sentence “Fish fish fish fish fish fish fish fish fish.” means roughly the same thing as “perch feed on bleak”. If you consider freshwater shrimp to be fish, things get way way crazier.
[The tree was made using phpSyntaxTree. The e’s are phonologically null traces in the relative clauses—they are semantically linked to the fish that heads the NP where the RC attaches.]
