You can have as many as 11 in a row.
Buffalo[-residing] buffalo [animals who] buffalo[-residing] buffalo [animals] buffalo [do themselves] buffalo buffalo[-residing] buffalo [animals who] buffalo[-residing] buffalo [animals] buffalo.
You can have unlimitedly many in a row, even without using “Buffalo” as an adjective.
Consider the noun phrase “buffalo(1) buffalo(2) buffalo(3)”, meaning buffalo(1) who are buffaloed(3) by buffalo(2).
We can get more specific about who’s doing the buffaloing: “buffalo(1) buffalo(21) buffalo(22) buffalo(23) buffalo3”, where we have replaced “buffalo(2)” with “buffalo(21) buffalo(22) buffalo(22)”—buffalo(21) who are buffaloed(22) by buffalo(23). Exact same structure here as in the original.
But now we can do the same to buffalo(22) as we did before to buffalo(2): “buffalo(1) buffalo(21) buffalo(221) (buffalo222) (buffalo223) buffalo(23) buffalo3”. And so ad infinitum.
And then we can turn the whole thing into a sentence by appending “buffalo buffalo” (and, if we please, we can replace that last “buffalo” with a similar cascade).
This gets us buffalo-sentences of all odd lengths >= 3. If we’re prepared to use buffalo (v.) without an object—signifying that whoever-it-is buffaloes someone—then we can take any of those noun phrases and just put “buffalo” after it, getting all lengths >= 2. Or if we’re prepared to use it as an imperative, with an object but no explicit subject, then we can put “buffalo” before any of those noun phrases to get a sentence. If we are happy doing both at once then we can say “Buffalo!” as an imperative (“go harass someone!”). Or we can use it as a standalone noun: “Buffalo!” meaning “oh, hey, I just saw some buffalo”[1]. So buffalo^n is a grammatical English sentence for any positive integer n.
[1] Isn’t there a visual gag in some movie where character A shouts “Duck!”, character B doesn’t duck but looks around in puzzlement saying “where?”, and then character B is struck by a large ?inflatable? duck, or something? Same pair of meanings at play :-).
You can have as many as 11 in a row. Buffalo[-residing] buffalo [animals who] buffalo[-residing] buffalo [animals] buffalo [do themselves] buffalo buffalo[-residing] buffalo [animals who] buffalo[-residing] buffalo [animals] buffalo.
You can have unlimitedly many in a row, even without using “Buffalo” as an adjective.
Consider the noun phrase “buffalo(1) buffalo(2) buffalo(3)”, meaning buffalo(1) who are buffaloed(3) by buffalo(2).
We can get more specific about who’s doing the buffaloing: “buffalo(1) buffalo(21) buffalo(22) buffalo(23) buffalo3”, where we have replaced “buffalo(2)” with “buffalo(21) buffalo(22) buffalo(22)”—buffalo(21) who are buffaloed(22) by buffalo(23). Exact same structure here as in the original.
But now we can do the same to buffalo(22) as we did before to buffalo(2): “buffalo(1) buffalo(21) buffalo(221) (buffalo222) (buffalo223) buffalo(23) buffalo3”. And so ad infinitum.
And then we can turn the whole thing into a sentence by appending “buffalo buffalo” (and, if we please, we can replace that last “buffalo” with a similar cascade).
This gets us buffalo-sentences of all odd lengths >= 3. If we’re prepared to use buffalo (v.) without an object—signifying that whoever-it-is buffaloes someone—then we can take any of those noun phrases and just put “buffalo” after it, getting all lengths >= 2. Or if we’re prepared to use it as an imperative, with an object but no explicit subject, then we can put “buffalo” before any of those noun phrases to get a sentence. If we are happy doing both at once then we can say “Buffalo!” as an imperative (“go harass someone!”). Or we can use it as a standalone noun: “Buffalo!” meaning “oh, hey, I just saw some buffalo”[1]. So buffalo^n is a grammatical English sentence for any positive integer n.
[1] Isn’t there a visual gag in some movie where character A shouts “Duck!”, character B doesn’t duck but looks around in puzzlement saying “where?”, and then character B is struck by a large ?inflatable? duck, or something? Same pair of meanings at play :-).